
Class Jh^JU3_, 
Boolo 



m 



REMARKABLE 



ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 



• 

REVISED BY THOS. 0.' SUMMERS, D.D. 



PUBLISHED BY E. STETENSON & E. A. OWEN, AGENTS, 

FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 
1856. 



fSb 






Duke Univoraittt" 
MAY 7 1934 



STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY A. A. STITT, 
SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHYILLE, TENN. 



€ttnin\U. 



PAGE 

PREFACE, BY THE EDITOR V 

INTRODUCTION 7 

CHAPTER I. 

SIGNAL DELIVERANCES FROM IMMINENT PERILS OF 
MEN WHO EVENTUALLY BECAME EMINENT FOR 
PIETY AND FOR USEFULNESS 25 

CHAPTER II. 

FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED BY SIGNAL DELIVER- 
ANCES FROM IMMINENT PERILS 66 

CHAPTER III. 

PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES FROM DANGER BY 
INSTRUMENTALITIES OF A REMARKABLE CHARAC- 
TER 124 

CHAPTER IV. 

CONCLUSION 154 

(iii) 



\XttKtt. 



This is a book of facts illustrative of a special 
providence. This great doctrine is denied by 
some and doubted by others — partly, perhaps, 
because many who have written on it identify it 
with the unscriptural dogma of absolute predes- 
tination, with which it has not the remotest 
affinity. Those who wish to see the theory of 
Divine providence discussed in a rational and 
scriptural light, are referred to Sherlock's admira- 
ble treatise on that subject. The present volume 
contains a multitude of most interesting and 
remarkable escapes from peril, through the inter- 
vention of Him in whom we live, and move, and 
have our being. Its perusal will afford pleasure 
and profit to the general reader, for whose benefit 
it has been carefully revised by 

Nashville, Tenn., August 10, 1855. 



(v) 



Jbmarklrk dpstapta from |)mL 



INTRODUCTION. 

There are two facts connected with man's 
existence here which it is of the utmost import- 
ance that he should renieniber ; but which he is 
strangely prone to forget. 

The first is the extreme uncertainty of life, and 
his constant liability to death. In words at least 
men admit this truth : all know that life's thread 
is so brittle that it may snap at any moment ) 
that the next breath we draw we may inhale 
deadly infection — that the next step we take may 
be into the grave. The pulse which beats as 
the author traces these lines may never beat again ; 
the eye that reads them may be closed in death 
ere the page shall be turned. All this we ac- 
knowledge to be true ; but how few really believe 
and act upon it ! We confess the truth in 



3 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

words — we deny it in conduct and feeling: we 
feel its force in the case of others, but we are in- 
sensible to it in our own. Men wonder that the 
soldier, the sailor, the miner, should so often lead 
careless lives, surrounded as they are by danger 
and death, forgetting the while that they live 
amidst perils, latent indeed, but no less real than 
theirs : "All men think all men mortal but them- 
selves." We marvel at the insensibility of others, 
and are ourselves as insensible as they. " Go to 
now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go 
into such a city, and continue there a year, and 
buy and sell, arid get gain : whereas ye know not 
what shall be on the morrow. For what is your 
life ? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a 
little time, and then vanisheth away." 

The other fact to which men are prone to be 
so strangely insensible, is their constant and 
entire dependence on the providential care of 
God, to guard them amidst manifold and im- 
pending dangers, to preserve them in their ex- 
ceeding frailty, and to sustain their lives till the 
" appointed time" for their departure shall have 
come. Around and "underneath us are the 
everlasting arms ;" but because we feel no sen- 
sible pressure, we forget their sustaining might. 
He "in whom we live and move and have our 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

being is not far from any one of us/' yet how 
apt are we to forget his presence and our depend- 
ence, because he does not make it manifest by 
any tangible or visible token ! The very con- 
stancy and ceaselessness of his care tend to 
confirm our insensibility to it. The equable, un- 
varying flow of divine goodness, preserving our 
lives from sudden jars and shocks, often makes 
us unmindful of its existence. The broad deep 
river, moving noiselessly and majestically in its 
ample channel, seems, to a thoughtless passer-by, 
to be almost motionless, as compared with the 
shallow brook which dashes itself into foam 
against the rocks which obstruct its course and 
block up its bed. Just so in our lives, the very 
fact that Grod has removed out of our way the 
hinderances to a safe and easy course, often makes 
us forget that Divine care has been exercised at 
all. We need imminent and startling perils to 
remind us of our ceaseless and signal deliver- 
ances. Cecil, returning home one day, was met 
by his son, who said, " Father, I have had a 
merciful escape since we parted : my horse fell 
under me, yet I was preserved unhurt." " My 
son," replied he, " I have had a yet more wonder- 
ful escape : I have ridden five hundred miles, and 
my horse has not so much as stumbled." 



10 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

There is, however, an important difference as 
respects the mode in which the facts thus noted 
are treated by mankind. No one questions the 
certainty of death : " The living know that they 
shall die." God's providential care for us and 
control over the events of our history, is, how- 
ever, regarded by many with doubt, and, by 
some, is met with a flat denial. There are 
various degrees of skepticism on this point, from 
the atheist, "the fool who says in his heart, 
There is no God" — the epicurean, who would 
place him at an unapproachable distance from 
his creatures, whence he cannot "humble him- 
self to behold the things that are done upon the 
earth" — the modern philosopher, who affirms 
that the Deity works by necessary, universal, 
and invariable laws, which will not bend and 
adapt themselves to special individual cases, ad- 
mitting a general, but denying a particular pro- 
vidence — down to the hesitating believer, whose 
feeble, languid faith is unable to grasp firmly the 
cheering truth that the very hairs of his head are 
numbered, and that not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground without the will of his Father who is in 
heaven. 

In the following pages it is intended to ad- 
duce some instances of remarkable escapes from 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

peril, which may tend to give a more vivid and 
distinct appreciation of our constant dependence 
on the providence of Grod. Many of our readers 
probably will be able to recall from their own 
experience events similar to those recorded in 
our work, and it will be no small benefit if they 
are led by the perusal of this volume gratefully 
to recognize or recollect those manifest tokens 
of " the good hand of G-od" upon them. Some, 
whose lives have flowed on so equably and 
smoothly that they have no dangers or deliver- 
ances to remember, may learn from the experi- 
ence of others, as here detailed, that should 
the moment of peril ever arise, God is able to 
deliver them in their utmost and extremest 
need. 

With regard to the incidents narrated in this 
volume, the writer may be permitted to say that 
his chief difficulty has been that of selection; 
and that he was not prepared for the immense 
number of illustrative facts that crowded upon 
him on every hand so soon as his attention was 
called to the subject. In selecting the incidents 
for narration, only those have been adopted which 
seemed to be well-authenticated and attested. 
Very many have been rejected because the evi- 
dence in their favor was incomplete. In the 



12 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

great majority of instances, also, the words of the 
original narrative have been given with some 
abridgment, and condensation where the particu- 
lars were unimportant. Though this plan may 
occasion an inequality and even a frequent rugged- 
ness of style, yet it has the preponderating advan- 
tage of conveying the exact truth, while it frees 
the writer from the suspicion of having colored 
his statements to suit his purpose. 

Before entering, however, upon the main sub- 
ject of the volume, a few preliminary difficulties 
which may exist in the minds of some readers 
may be briefly dealt with. 

These difficulties are of two kinds, or at least 
may be reduced to one of two classes which are 
diametrically opposed to each other. 

The first of these would ascribe escapes from 
danger to chance or accident, and would resolve 
all deliverances from peril into mere casual and 
fortuitous coincidences. Now, if we attend to 
the meaning of the terms we use, it will become 
most evident that chance is a mere word and 
nothing more. It simply expresses our ignorance 
of the causes which have been at work to pro- 
duce a given result, or else that the event was 
unexpected by us, and took us by surprise. To 
speak of chance as a producing cause, or agent, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

is pure absurdity, and only affords an instance of 
the often noted fact, that we are constantly im- 
posed upon and deceived by the words we use. 
It is neither more nor less than making our 
ignorance the controlling or producing cause of 
the events which happen. In the strict sense 
of the words, there can be no such thing as 
chance in the universe, since every thing must 
spring from some cause, and come into existence 
according to some law, hidden from us, perhaps, 
yet not the less real and efficacious. While rea- 
son and experience thus confute the idea of 
chance as an agency in the affairs of men, religion 
points us to G-od as the hidden cause, and his will 
as the secret law. 

But difficulties in the way of providential inter- 
position, of the very opposite character, are felt 
by some minds. It is maintained that the affairs 
of the world are regulated by hard, inflexible, 
material laws, which cause and control all events, 
and which do not and cannot bend to meet any 
emergency: that man has been provided with 
faculties which fit him to investigate these laws, 
and with prudence and foresight which enable 
Mm to apply his knowledge of them to practice : 
that if, in the exercise of this practical wisdom, 
he acts in accordance with these laws, he will 
2 



14 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

escape all disasters and perils ; but that if he ne- 
glect or violate them, they will work on, with 
crushing and resistless force, for his destruction. 
If this be so, there is no room for providential in- 
terposition, no answers to prayer — nothing but 
the execution of natural and inevitable laws. 
These views have been enforced with much show 
of logical argumentation and philosophical pro- 
fundity, in some of the popular treatises of the 
day. It would be an easy task to expose tl^eir 
fallacies and sophisms in detail : to do so, how- 
ever, would occupy far more space than our pages 
can afford. It will be sufficient to point out the 
three following insuperable difficulties by which 
such a theory is beset : — 

1st. The Word of G-od distinctly, emphatically, 
and repeatedly asserts the fact of a special provi- 
dence, and declares that God does continue to watch 
over and care for the creatures he has formed. 
Whilst it condemns the presumptuous neglect of 
means, it teaches us that second causes are but 
instruments in the hands of Gk)d, and that the 
laws of nature are but the manifestations of His 
divine will. It adduces numberless instances in 
which his servants, who have been brought into 
circumstances of danger, have been delivered by 
his special and direct intervention, sometimes bv 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

the temporary suspension of natural laws, some- 
times by the interposition of other secondary 
causes and instrumentalities, yet always by the 
agency of Him for whose power nothing is too 
vast, nothing too minute. These theorists, then, 
who deny the fact of a special providence, must 
be prepared to prove the Scriptures a cunningly- 
devised fable — must confute and overthrow the 
overwhelming amount of evidence which attests 
their divine origin, before they can prove the truth 
of their speculations. 

2d. The universal instincts of mankind testify 
to the reality of divine providence. The belief 
of some supreme Being presiding over the affairs 
of men, hearing their prayers, supplying their 
wants, and guarding their lives, has been univer- 
sal. The most polished and refined nations have 
not risen above this conviction — the most barbar- 
ous and degraded have not sunk below it. For 
three thousand years atheism in its various forms 
has endeavored to uproot it, but in vain. Beyond 
the narrow limits of a superficial school, this cold 
and cheerless negation has been unable to propa- 
gate itself; and men have clung with firm tenacity 
to the belief that "there is a God that judgeth in 
the earth. ;; Even the scoffers at providence have 
commonly been heard to pray when in sorrow or 



16 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

danger. The laws of nature are felt to be too 
numerous, intricate, and vast for our feeble pow- 
ers to explore and grasp : man sinks down appalled 
at the mighty, mysterious forces at work all around 
him, and he flies, by a necessity of his being, to 
some supreme Power who cares for his frail, err- 
ing creatures. In all ages and nations, men have 
endeavored to avert calamity and to secure pros- 
perity by prayer. The universality of this tend- 
ency points to some fundamental law of our moral 
being, equally universal with itself. But this is 
a fact which needs to be accounted for. Whence 
sprang this universal conviction ? How can its 
existence be explained, save on the supposition 
of the reality of the fact which it asserts ? 

3d. Experience establishes the doctrine of 
divine providence on the sure, solid foundation 
of fact. There are innumerable events and con- 
junctures in the history of the world which the 
supposition of blind chance, or of blind law, are 
powerless to explain — in which we are compelled 
to admit the action of some overruling and design- 
ing agency, controlling and directing the affairs 
of men. This is peculiarly observable in tracing 
back to their first small beginnings the great 
movements which have affected the destinies of 
humanity, or in studying the biography of those 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

individuals who have originated or guided those 
movements. We discern that circumstances alto- 
gether beyond their control, and of the design 
and influence of which they were not aware, have 
turned them from one course, or impelled them 
into another, checked them, directed them, and 
" led them by a way that they knew not." A 
careful examination of these seeming accidents 
will discover in them such minute and exact 
adaptations, such evident tokens of design, and 
results so unexpected, yet so momentous, that 
every candid mind must admit that there was in 
them something more than the action of accident 
or of law, and will confess, with the Egyptian 
magicians, " This is the finger of Grod." 

Let us look, for instance, at the career of 
Luther. Among the many incidents in his event- 
ful life which illustrate this truth, we will only 
advert to that decisive one which led him to 
abandon a secular life and enter a monastery. He 
is returning from Mansfield : the death of Alexis 
has greatly affected him, and made him feel the 
vanity of life and the nearness of death more than 
he has ever done before. Erfurth is near, when 
he will again have to plunge into studies and pur- 
suits for which these thoughts have given him a 
distaste. A thunderbolt bursts from the sky. 
2* 



18 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

flashes by him, and buries itself in the earth at 
his feet. His decision is at once taken. He 
asks himself what his condition would have been 
if that bolt had struck him. He shudders at the 
thought, and thenceforward determines to devote 
himself to a life of religion and to a preparation 
for eternity. How different would the history 
of the world have been, had the life of Luther 
ended there, or if it had not been turned into a 
new channel ! Had his course been different, 
ours must have been so too. Yet, on how many 
contingencies and chances did it seem to depend ! 
That he should have got just to that spot, and no 
farther: that the bolt should have fallen just 
where and when it did, and not struck him : that 
it should have descended just at the moment when 
his mind was opened to receive such lessons and 
influences — all these things suppose an overruling 
Providence, controlling his footsteps, acquainted 
with his thoughts, launching the thunderbolt and 
directing its flight : thus preparing for the Re- 
formation, and shielding the head of the great, 
but as yet unconscious reformer, from harm. 

Or take the case of Pascal. — Just at the time 
when his hopeless passion for the sister of his 
friend and patron, the Duke of Roannes, had in- 
spired him with an aversion to the world, he 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

was driving over the bridge of Neuilly, when, 
as he came to that part of it which was unpro- 
tected by a parapet, his horses took fright, began 
to plunge violently, and sprang over the side of 
the bridge into the river. Had the carriage fol- 
lowed them, Pascal must have perished; but, 
happily, on the brink of the descent the traces 
broke, the horses were drowned, and he escaped. 
He now yielded to the entreaties of his sister 
Jacqueline, who was already an inmate of the 
celebrated Port Royal Academy, and devoted 
himself to the service of God. To this circum- 
stance we owe the Provincial Letters, which 
were the first, and are still among the heaviest 
blows ever struck at the system of the Jesuit ; 
and his "Thoughts," which take their place 
among the most precious gems in the treasury 
of the Church. 

In further illustration of the truth which we 
have thus been endeavoring to establish, let us 
take another instance of a different kind, in 
which the chain of providential antecedents and 
sequences is much longer and more complicated. 
In the year 1500, the wife of Giovanni Cellini 
gave birth to a child. The parents had been led 
by various superstitious reasons to expect a 
daughter, whom they designed to name Repa- 



20 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

rata. It proved to be a boy. "The nurse/' 
says Cellini, in his autobiography, "took it to 
my father, observing, 'I here bring you a fine 
present which you little expect.' My father, 
who was of a philosophical disposition, said, 
'What God gives me I shall always receive 
thankfully ;' and turning aside the clothes in 
which I was wrapped, saw with his own eyes the 
unexpected boy. Clasping his hands together, 
he lifted up his eyes to heaven, saying, ' Lord, I 
thank thee from the very bottom of my heart for 
this present, which is very dear and welcome to 
me/ The standers-by asked him joyfully how 
he proposed to call the child now ? He made 
them no other answer than, 'He is Welcome.' 
And this name of Welcome (Benvenuto) he re- 
solved to give me at the font; and so I was 
christened accordingly." 

Cellini goes on to narrate that when he was 
three years old, as he was playing in the yard 
behind his father's house, a large scorpion fell 
out from behind a water-tank. Taking it for a 
crab, he seized it; but, from its size and the 
manner in which he grasped it, its two mouths 
protruded beyond his little hand on one side, 
and its tail on the other. Running with it to his 
grandfather, he cried, "See my pretty little 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

crab I*' The old man called loudly to him to 
throw it down, at which he began to cry, and 
grasped it the harder. The father, attracted by 
the altercation, ran up, and perceiving that if 
the child attempted to do so, he would be fatally 
wounded before he could disentangle himself 
from its claws, seized a pair of shears which lay 
near, and cut off its head and tail. His life was 
thus preserved, and as he grew up he was dis- 
tinguished not only for great talent as an artist, 
but as one of the most daring swordsmen and 
best marksmen in Home. 

In the twenty-sixth year of his age, the famous 
siege of Rome by the troops under the constable 
De Bourbon occurred. Early on the morning 
of the day on which the assault on the city was 
to be made, the constable was killed by a shot 
from the walls. The immediate and the ulterior 
results of his death were most important. Be- 
fore the close of the day Borne would have been 
his — held for him by an army of forty thousand 
men, devoted to his person, and for the most 
part enlisted from the Protestant states of Ger- 
many. His civil and military genius, which made 
him formidable even as a solitary exile, would 
have enabled him to keep what he had acquired, 
or at the least he would have been in a position 



22 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

to dictate terms to his enemies in France, and 
secure the restoration of his title and estates. 
In either case, the destinies of France, Spain, and 
Italy would have been materially affected. There 
can be but little question but that he would have 
joined his kinsmen and party, who put them- 
selves at the head of the Huguenot movement. 
With the accession of his genius, influence, and 
wealth, the issue of the bloody conflict must have 
been widely different. Even as it was, the Hu- 
guenots were all but a match for their enemies, 
and were only crushed by one of the most atro- 
cious crimes recorded on the page of history. 
Had he lived then, and thrown his weight into 
their scale, the massacre of St. Bartholomew and 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes would in 
all likelihood have been averted. But historians 
are agreed that these atrocities were among the 
causes of the French Revolution, by the murder 
and exile of the Protestants who formed the best 
part of the French population. The same causes 
cooperated in securing to England her manufac- 
turing and commercial supremacy, by driving to 
her hospitable shores the fugitives, with their 
various arts and industry, which France then 
lost, and England gained. It is vain, however, 
to speculate upon what might have been. It is 



INTRODUCTION. *6 

sufficient to say, that the struggle between the 
Roman Catholics and Protestants was the turn- 
ing-point in the history of France, and that, 
nearly balanced as the parties were, the life of 
the constable De Bourbon must have greatly in- 
fluenced the issue. 

But what, it may be asked, has this to do with 
the young artist Cellini? Everything; for he 
declares that it was he who fired the fatal shot. 
If we accept his statement as a true one, what 
important events in the world's history hung upon 
that moment when as a child he grasped the 
scorpion ! Had he seized it by another part of 
the body, or had the reptile's sting been a few 
hair-breadths longer, its poison would probably 
have been fatal to him, and the whole course of 
European history must have been altered. It is 
true that if we look, as Protestants, at the disas- 
trous consequences to the reformed faith in 
France, which in all probability flowed from the 
death of the constable De Bourbon, we may at 
first sight be apt to think that it would have been 
better for the world that the scorpion's bite had 
been fatal to the child. But important results, 
in addition to those already developed, may yet 
spring from it. In our ignorance of the ten- 
dencies of the present and the revelations of the 



24 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

future, we must wait the unfolding of His pur- 
poses " whose glory it is to conceal a thing." 

These incidents may surely prove that what 
reason and revelation teach as to the agency of 
Divine Providence, is yet further confirmed by 
an appeal to fact. Events which seem most tri- 
vial are made to work out the most momentous 
results ; and what men blinded by unbelief term 
accidental chances, are the workings of that Pro- 
vidence " that shapes our ends, rough-hew them 
how we may." The following pages will tend still 
more fully, we trust, to illustrate this truth. 



THE WALDEXSES. 



CHAPTER I. 

SIGNAL DELIVERANCES FROM LMMINENT PERILS OF MEN 
TVHO EVENTUALLY BECAME EMINENT FOR PIETY AND 
FOR USEFULNESS. 

It is related of the Waldenses, that on one 
occasion, when, escaping from the fury of their 
cruel persecutors, they had to continue their 
flight through the night, their path lay through 
the rugged and perilous defiles of the Alps. But 
the dangers amidst which they moved were veiled 
by the impenetrable darkness. At length the 
day broke, and under the light of the rising sun, 
they turned to survey the track along which they 
had trod. By a unanimous and irresistible im- 
pulse, they fell on their knees to thank God for 
their marvellous preservation from dangers which 
the darkness had at once concealed and increased : 
here, they had walked on the very verge of a 
tremendous precipice, where a false step would 
have dashed them to atoms : there, they had 
skirted the banks of a mountain lake, whose black 
waters seemed to indicate unfathomable depths ; 
and yonder hung the avalanche, with a balance 
so tremulous that a whisper might have brought 
it down, and buried them beneath its mountainous 
mass. This night-march of Grod's persecuted 
children affords an apt illustration of the experi- 
3 



26 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

ence of many of his servants. They have moved 
on reckless of the perils which surrounded, and 
unmindful of the arm which sustained them • till 
at length they "who were sometime darkness, 
but are now light in the Lord," look back upon 
the path they have trod, and fall prostrate in 
wonder, gratitude, and adoring praise, at a review 
of the dangers they have escaped, and the unac- 
knowledged deliverances they have enjoyed. 

In the present chapter it will be our endeavor 
to collect a few examples of this kind. May the 
reader, as he peruses them, and traces, perhaps, 
in his own life, events of a similar character, be 
led to inquire whether they have produced in his 
mind similar impressions and results — gratitude 
to God for his forbearing mercy, repentance for 
sin, and surrender of the heart to Christ and to 
the Spirit, so that henceforth he may be safe, 
either in life or death. 

The early life of Bunyan affords a striking illus- 
tration of the truth, to the exposition of which 
this chapter is devoted. We give the narrative 
in his own simple language : — - 

" God did not leave me, but followed me still, 
not now with convictions but with judgments, 
yet such as were mixed with mercies. For once 
I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped 
drowning. Another time I fell out of a boat into 
the Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved me 
alive. Besides, another time, being in the field 
with one of my companions, it chanced that an 
adder passed over the highway; so I, having a 
stick in my hand, struck her over the back ; and 



JOHN BUNYAN. 27 

having stunned her, I forced open her mouth 
with my stick, and plucked her sting out with my 
fingers : by which act, had not God been merciful 
unto me, I might by my desperateness have 
brought myself to mine end. 

" This, also, have I taken notice of with thanks- 
giving : — When I was a soldier, I, with others, 
was drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; 
but when I was just ready to go, one of the com- 
pany desired to go in my room : to which, when 
I had consented, he took my place ; and coming 
into the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in 
the head with a musket ball and died.* 

" Here, as I said, were judgments and mercy, 
but neither of them did awaken my soul to 
righteousness ; wherefore I sinned still, and grew 
more and more rebellious against God, and care- 
less of my own salvation." 

Had Bunyan been cut off in his sins, as on 
each of these occasions he was on the very point 
of being, what an irreparable loss would have 
been sustained by the world and the church ! 
"Well might he, in recollecting such escapes as 
these, speak of " Grace abounding to the chief 
of sinners;" and take as the motto to that well- 
known work the words, " Come and hear, all ye 
that fear God, and I will declare what he hath 
done for my soul V' What fitter subject for pro- 
fane mirth could be found than the Divine Om- 
nipotence stooping to care for the poor illiterate 



* This happened at the siege of Leicester : the spot 
Is still traditionally pointed out. 



28 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

tinker; yet how is the fact justified and explain- 
ed by the result ! 

The life of the Rev. J. Newton has some 
striking points of resemblance with that of Bun- 
yan, in the vices and perils of his earlier, and the 
signal usefulness of his closing days. He records 
six distinct escapes from the most imminent dan- 
ger. In his youth he agreed to accompany some 
companions who were going on board a man-of- 
war on the Sabbath. On his way to join them 
he was detained by some unexpected circumstance, 
and when he reached the spot, they had sailed ; 
but they never returned — the boat sank, and all 
perished. Some years afterwards, when off the 
African coast, he challenged his messmates to a 
drinking bout. In the course of it he proposed 
as a toast, a horrible imprecation against the man 
who should leave the table first. This proved to 
be himself. His brain fired with the spirits he 
had drunk, he was dancing about the deck like a 
maniac, when his hat flew overboard. He was 
just springing over the ship's side after it, when 
one of his comrades caught him. Had he plunged 
into the sea, he must have perished, as, even 
when sober, he could not swim ; the tide also was 
running very strong, and his companions were 
too much intoxicated to have got out a boat for 
his rescue. 

One night a violent storm broke upon the 
vessel in which he was, and the alarm was given 
that she had struck. He was hastening on deck, 
when the captain met him, and bade him return 
below for a knife, appointing another man to take 



REV. JOHN NEWTON. 29 

his place during his absence. His substitute was 
washed overboard almost immediately. On two 
other occasions, during this voyage, did the same 
watchful Providence preserve him from the most 
imminent perils. On his next voyage to the 
same coast, he had been engaged for some days 
in fetching wood and water from the shore. As 
he was pushing off one afternoon, the captain 
hailed him and told him to return, saying, that 
"he had taken it into his head that Newton 
should remain on board that day, and some one 
go ashore in his place/' The captain could give 
no other reason for the change, than that such 
was his will. Newton of course obeyed. The 
boat was swamped, and the sailors who went in 
her were drowned. 

Some years afterwards, Newton had arranged 
to go on board a ship at a given hour. As he 
was remarkable for his punctuality, often sitting 
with his watch in his hand, lest he should be a 
minute behind time, his friends were much sur- 
prised at being kept waiting for him on this 
occasion. At length he arrived, having been de- 
tained by an unexpected and pressing engage- 
ment. Whilst on their way to the vessel, she 
blew up with a fearful explosion. Had he been 
(according to his previously invariable practice) 
punctual to his appointment, he must have 
perished with all on board. The detention of a 
few minutes, reluctantly submitted to, prolonged 
a life of unspeakable value to the Church of 
Christ. 

The late Mr. James Haldane, so well known 
3* 



30 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

from his efforts to revive evangelical religion in 
Scotland, at the commencement of the present 
century, was, like Mr. Newton, originally trained 
to the sea as his profession. He was throughout 
his life distinguished by that energy, courage, 
and stern devotion to duty, which form the 
basis of the noblest characters, and which only 
need the renewing and sanctifying influence of 
the Holy Spirit, to prepare for the greatest 
achievements in the Christian warfare. Though 
preserved from running " to the same excess of 
riot" into which Newton, in common with so 
many seamen, plunged, he yet attained the age 
of manhood before his great natural endow- 
ments were laid at the foot of the cross, and 
consecrated, in simple faith, to the Saviour. It 
was while he was living without God, that he 
experienced the following providential deliver- 
ance : 

" The ship in which he sailed," says his bio- 
grapher, " was crowded with passengers; amongst 
whom was a cavalry officer, who was returning 
home — a notorious shot, a successful duellist, and 
much of a bully. It afterwards appeared that he 
had been forced to leave the king's service in 
consequence of his quarrelsome temper and apti- 
tude for such brawls. In the course of the 
voyage he made himself very disagreeable, and 
was a general object of dread. On one occasion, 
some high words arose between him and Mr. 
Haldane, arising out of a proposal to make the 
latter a party to a paltry trick, designed to pro- 
voke an irritable invalid, as he lay in his cot with 



JAMES HAJjJJAxNE. dl 

Ms dooa* open, and was, in fact, actually dying. 
Mr. Haldane' s indignant refusal issued in this 
captain's taking an opportunity, deliberately and 
publicly, to insult him at the mess-table, when, 
in return for a somewhat contemptuous retort, 
the aggressor threw a glass of wine in Mr. Hal- 
dane's face. To rise from his seat and dash at 
the head of his assailant a heavy ship's tumbler, 
was the work of an instant. Providentially 
the missile was pitched too high,* pulverized 
against the beam of the cabin, and descended in 
a shower of liquid upon the offending dragoon. 
A challenge and a duel ensued. The two anta- 
gonists were placed at twelve paces distant, and 
were to fire together and by signal. Before 
the pistol was given into Mr. Haldane's hand, 
his second, in a low tone, repeated what he had 
said before, that this was a case in which he 
must have no scruple about shooting his oppo- 
nent ; that it was not a common duel, but a case 
of self-preservation, and that one or the other 
must fall. The signal was given, and as Mr. 
Haldane raised the pistol, with a strange incon- 
sistency he breathed the secret prayer — ' Father, 
into thy hands I commit my spirit;' thus veri- 
fying the observation of Tertullian, that in 
moments of danger men involuntarily call upon 



* The reader will probably remember a parallel in- 
cident in the life of Henry Martyn, who, like Mr. 
Haldane, narrowly escaped being a murderer ; haying, 
in a fit of passion, hurled a carving-knife at the head of 
a person who had offended him. 



32 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

G-od, even when they seem practically to forget 
his existence, and trample upon his laws. With 
this prayer in his heart, and with his eye fixed 
on his antagonist, without a symptom of trepida- 
tion, he calmly drew the trigger, when his pistol 
burst, the contents flying upwards, and fragments 
of the barrel striking and wounding his face. The 
other pistol missed fire, and the challenger imme- 
diately intimated that he was so well satisfied 
with the honorable conduct of Mr. Haldane that 
he was willing that the affair should terminate. 
Thus was he preserved from a double danger, 
either of which threatened to be almost certainly 
fatal — the deadly aim of his antagonist, and the 
bursting of his own pistol. 

" In pleasing contrast to the spirit manifested 
in this affair, was Mr. Haldane' s conduct about 
ten years afterward, his conversion having oc- 
curred in the interval. Being at Buxton, in the 
public room of one of the large hotels, he was 
treated with marked insolence and rudeness by 
a young man present. Mr. Haldane calmly 
said, ( There was a time, Sir, when I should have 
resented this impertinence; but I have since 
learned to forgive injuries, and to overlook in- 
sults.' He had lived to exemplify Solomon's 
words, ' Better is he that ruleth his spirit than 
he that taketh a city/ 

" Mr. Haldane found in his brother, Robert, 
an able and energetic partner in his pious enter- 
prises. The earnest and successful labors of 
the latter in Scotland and at Geneva are too well 
known to need description here. He was provi- 



JAMES HALDANE. 33 

dentially preserved, as his brother had been, at 
a time when, like him, he was unmindful of 
God's tender cane. When skating one day, the 
ice broke ; he fell in, and was, with the utmost 
difficulty, extricated. This event, seconded by 
his brother's influence, seems to have been one 
of the links in the chain of second causes which 
led to his dedication to God of the life thus 
preserved." 

We have referred, in our Introduction, to the 
mode in which Luther and Pascal's deliverance 
operated upon them, at a time when they had 
just begun to be awakened to the realities of 
eternal things. The same truth is ably illustrated 
in a work recently published, entitled "A Testi- 
mony to the Truth," which contains the account 
of several remarkable deliverances which the 
writer of it experienced in Australia, at a time 
when he was emerging from the dark and dreary 
blank of atheism, into a life of faith in Christ. 
We select the narrative of one of the escapes 
which happened to its author, just as speculative 
infidelity was on the point of giving way, because 
it illustrates the coincidence which so often is 
found to occur between escape from peril and a 
peculiar state of mind, existing at the moment of 
deliverance in the person rescued. 

" Something," observes the author in question, 
" was required to stir me up into practical acti- 
vity. And I think nothing more remarkable in 
itself and its adaptation can be instanced in the 
history of human life than what took place. A 
series of providences followed; the overwhelming 



34 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

tendency of which will be allowed to have been, 
just what was needed. And what they tended 
to, they accomplished. For a* series of years I 
met with such striking deliverances in imminent 
hazards of life, that, unless I had done it wilfully, 
and had obstinately resisted their admonitions, I 
could not but be aroused to the most distinct feel- 
ing of the necessity of determining what was truth, 
and of acting in conformity to it. 

" One summer evening, as I walked alone 
through the woods, a noise, some yards off to the 
left, suddenly arrested my attention. I was walk- 
ing where I had no expectation of meeting with 
any human being, yet I thought I heard the 
voices of people conversing. I stopped short, 
and looked round, and saw a party of travellers, 
with a pack-horse, passing along among the trees, 
in an opposite direction to myself, about fifty 
paces on my left. Just at that part a pack- 
horse was an unusual thing, bullocks being gene- 
rally used for this mode of conveying baggage. 
My curiosity being thus excited, I still continued 
to gaze. Suddenly I heard the peculiar rustling 
that a large snake makes in passing through very 
dry grass. It was as distinct as if my ear were 
laid close to it. I looked. It was at my very 
feet. A long brown snake was uncurling him- 
self, and stretching away his lithe and hateful 
shape from off the very spot on which my right 
foot would have been placed at the very step I 
was about to make. The bite of the species is 
considered to produce death in two or three hours, 
and to be so rapid in extending itself through 



SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON. 35 

the system, as scarcely to leave any hope from 
the most speedy excision of the part. My con- 
sciousness was instantly all about me. I saw 
that there had been but a sound between me and 
all that comes after death, be that what it might. 
It was coming very close to the brink of the void 
abysm, that I as yet had as the only representa- 
tion of futurity. It compelled me to look fairly 
into it. I could not help thinking whether I 
might not have a soul, and whether that soul 
might not have a Grod to answer to for the deeds 
done in the body." 

These are solemn thoughts and questionings, 
and such as ought to suggest themselves to every 
rational mind, under similar circumstances. Yet, 
alas ! what multitudes are there, whose hearts 
are so besotted and blinded by sin, that the most 
imminent dangers fail to arouse them to serious 
thoughts ! 

The late Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was so 
impressed by his own numerous and striking de- 
liverances from positions of extreme danger, that 
he began to write a narrative of them ] but the 
manuscript, unhappily, remains unfinished. Some 
of them, however, are recorded in his Memoirs. 

a In the year 1806," he wrote, "I was tra- 
velling with the Earlham party in Scotland. I 
left them to return to the college of Dublin. In 
consequence of some conversation about the Park- 
gate vessels with my present wife, then Hannah 
G-urney, she extracted from me a promise that I 
would never go by Parkgate. I was exceedingly 
impatient to be in Dublin, in order to prepare for 



36 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

my examination. When I reached Chester, the 
captain of the Parkgate vessel came to me, and 
invited me to go with him. The wind was fair, 
the vessel was to sail in a few honrs : he was sure 
I should be in Dublin early the next morning, 
whereas a place in the Holyhead mail was doubt- 
ful, and at best I must lose the next day by tra- 
velling through Wales. My promise was a bitter 
mortification to me, but I could not dispense with 
it. I drank tea with a very large party. About 
eight or nine o'clock, they all went away on board 
the vessel ; and of the one hundred and nineteen 
persons who embarked as passengers, one hundred 
and eighteen were drowned before midnight !" 

Buxton had already begun to feel the import- 
ance of religion. This extraordinary escape seems 
to have deepened the impressions previously pro- 
duced, and to have rendered them permanent. A 
very dangerous illness, in which his life was 
almost despaired of, led him, in the words of his 
biographer, to yield " to that ascendency of reli- 
gion over his mind, which gave shape and color- 
ing to the whole of his after life." 

Moffat, in his narrative of " Missionary Labors 
and Scenes in South Africa," thus describes an 
incident in the lives of Berend and Africaner, 
who, though at the time heathens, and violently 
opposed to the gospel, afterwards became devout 
and earnest Christians. "Among the remarkable 
interpositions of Providence in saving his life 
from destruction," says Mr. Moffat, "Berend, 
more than once, repeated the following with 
much emphasis. It happened when he was en- 



BEREND AND AFRICANER. 61 

gaged in desperate conflict with Africaner, from 
whose lips I likewise heard it. They had been 
engaged for hours in mutual strife, taking and 
retaking a large herd of cattle. By means of the 
drove and hushes, each had managed to screen 
himself from his opponent. Suddenly a passage 
opened in the troop, which exposed the combat- 
ants to each other. Their rifles were instantly 
levelled ; but, at the moment they touched the 
triggers, a cow darted in between them, and the 
two balls lodged in the animal, which fell dead 
on the spot. But for this interposition, they 
would probably both have fallen, for they were 
most expert marksmen. Titus, a man who could 
take his gun in the dead of night, enter an im- 
mense pool in the Orange river, swim to the 
centre, take his seat on a rock just above the 
surface of the water, and wait the approach of a 
hippopotamus, which he would shoot just as it 
opened its monstrous jaws to seize him : a man 
who would deliberately smile the moment he laid 
the lion dead at his feet — this man, who appeared 
incapable of fear, reckless of danger, would say 
to me, when I spoke of this fact, ' Mynheer/ 
alluding to the power of the gospel, l knows how 
to use the only hammer which can make my heart 
feel/" 

In ascribing this escape to Divine intervention, 
many persons may be disposed to deride the sup- 
position as fanatical or superstitious. It will 
appear to them absurd to suppose that the King 
eternal, immortal, invisible, the blessed and only 
Potentate, should stoop to guard the lives of these 



38 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

two miserable naked savages, engaged in despi- 
cable and incessant brawls. But such persons 
surely forget, or disbelieve, that even these de- 
graded barbarians were endowed with an immortal 
nature, and destined to an eternal existence : each 
the possessors of a soul to which there was not, 
in the perishable splendors of earth, any thing 
comparable in value. 

About thirty years ago, a deputation from the 
London Missionary Society, consisting of Mr. 
Bennett and the Rev. Mr. Tyerman, was ap- 
pointed to visit the foreign stations of that body. 
These gentlemen went forth, like Paul and Bar- 
nabas, commended in faith and prayer to the pro- 
vidence of God, and for a period of nearly ten 
years were kept unharmed amidst innumerable 
perils. In another part of our work we propose 
to draw from the narrative of their voyages, com- 
piled by the poet Montgomery, another remarka- 
ble instance of providential interposition. At 
present, however, we only extract from it the 
following incident in the early life of Mr. Tyer- 
man, as detailed by him in public just before 
leaving England. The event, we may observe, 
is illustrative of the providence of G-od, unaffected 
by any theory we may form as to the nature of 
dreams. 

"Yesterday," said Mr. Tyerman, addressing 
his audience, " was the anniversary of a great and 
very remarkable deliverance, which I experienced 
in the year 1793. At that time I was intimate 
with several young men, as gay and trifling as 
myself, and we frequently spent our Sabbaths in 



REV. MR. TYERMAN. 6\) 

pleasure on the Thames. Early in the week, on 
the occasion referred to, I and four others had 
planned a Sunday party down the river : to make 
the most of it, we agreed to embark on Saturday 
afternoon, and proceed to Gravesend. On Fri- 
day night, when I lay down to rest, a transient 
misgiving, whether it was right so to profane the 
Sabbath of the Lord, gave me a little uneasiness ; 
but I overcame the monitory feeling, and fell 
asleep. On Saturday morning, when I awoke, 
the thought came upon me, but I again resisted 
it, and resolved to meet my companions in the 
afternoon. I was about to rise, but while I mused 
I fell asleep again, and dreamed. I thought my- 
self in a certain place, whither Divine Providence 
often led me at that season of my life. Here a 
gentleman called me to him, saying that he had a 
letter for me, which I went to receive from his 
hand. When I reached him, he had opened the 
enclosure and appeared to be reading the con- 
tents. I imagined then that I looked over his 
shoulder, and perceived that the letter was closely 
written; but a pen had been drawn through every 
line, and had obliterated all the words. Wonder- 
ing what this could mean, I was going to take 
hold of the letter, when a large black seal pre- 
sented itself to my sight, and so startled me that 
forthwith I awoke, with this sentence upon my 
mind, ( You shall not go V Though I had never 
been in any way superstitious regarding dreams, 
this so affected me, and the words, 'You shall 
not go/ seemed so perpetually sounding in my 
ears, and haunting my imagination, that I deter- 



40 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM TERIL. 

mined to be obedient and not go — persuaded that 
some evil would befall me if I did. I spent that 
day and the two following in great anguish and 
anxiety, expecting hourly to hear something that 
would explain this singular presentiment. No 
tidings, however, arrived till Tuesday morning, 
when I read in a newspaper the following para- 
graph : — ' Last Sunday, in the afternoon, as a 
boat, with four young gentlemen, a waterman, 

and a boy, belonging to Mr. , of Wapping, 

was coming up the river, in Bugsby's Hole, a 
little below Blackwall, a gust of wind upset the 
boat, and all on board perished/ That was the 
identical boat on which I was to have embarkecf. 
I could scarcely believe my eyes : I read the 
paragraph again and again. There it was, and 
there it remained, speaking the same words. I 
cannot express the horror and consternation of 
my mind : I was constrained to exclaim, ' This is 
the finger of God ! Who am I, that God should 
in so wonderful a manner interpose for my deliv- 
erance ? What a warning against Sabbath-break- 
ing ! What a call to devote myself to the Lord 
and his service !' — A warning which I took, and 
a call which I humbly hope I was thenceforward 
enabled to obey." 

In the cases already adduced, when many de- 
liverances have happened to the same individual, 
they have been spread over several years, and 
intervals unmarked by any striking event have 
elapsed between the various occurrences. Wo 
now come to some in which the most extraordi- 
nary perils were encountered in close and rapid 



CAPTAIN JAMES WILSON. 41 

succession, in a manner which, were they not so 
well attested, would appear incredible. 

In the annals of Christian missions, the name 
of Captain James Wilson will ever hold an honor- 
able place. His Christian devotedness and nau- 
tical skill in the command of the missionary ship, 
the " Duff," largely aided in the introduction of 
the gospel to the South Sea Islands. Yet though, 
in his latter days, so eminent a servant of Christ, 
he was in his earlier years deeply tainted with 
infidelity. During this period of his history, he 
underwent a long-continued series of sufferings 
, and dangers, some of which we now lay before 
our readers. 

In the year 1782, he had been employed in 
conveying naval stores to Sir Edward Hughes, 
when he was captured, with his vessel, by Admi- 
ral Suffrein, and carried into Cuddalore, then held 
by the French. Hyder Ally, who was at that 
time at war with the English, and unusually ex- 
asperated against them, was anxious to get as 
many prisoners as possible into his power, in order 
either to allure them into his service, or gratify 
his brutal ferocity by putting them to a painful 
death. He therefore offered to Suffrein the bribe 
of three hundred thousand rupees if he would 
give up his prisoners to him. To the disgrace 
of the French flag, Suffrein consented to this in- 
famous proposal. Wilson, aware of what he 
might expect if he fell into the hands of " the 
Tiger of the Carnatic," as the ferocious savage 
was called, determined, if possible, to make his 
escape. He communicated his resolution to a 



42 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

brother officer, imprisoned with him, and to a 
Bengalee servant-boy named Toby. The heart 
of the former failed him when the time came. 
Wilson and his servant, therefore, made the at- 
tempt alone : they crept softly up to the ram- 
parts as soon as it grew dusk, and leaped down, 
uncertain of the depth into which they plunged, 
or of the nature of the soil which would receive 
them. The fall, which proved to be about forty 
feet, somewhat stunned Wilson ; but he soon re- 
covered, called to the boy to follow his example, 
and caught him in his arms when he made the 
leap. They set out together for Tranquebar, the i 
nearest neutral settlement, ignorant of the dis- 
tance they would have to travel, the nature of the 
'•ountry they must pass over, and the number, 
depth, and width of the rivers they must cross : 
knowing only the general direction of the route 
to be taken, and guiding their course by the stars. 
The whole of that district is intersected by 
streams, which are tributary to, or branches from, 
the great Coleroon : some of them being of con- 
siderable magnitude, and very rapid. On reach- 
ing the first of these streams, Wilson found that 
the boy could not swim. Generously resolving 
not to leave him, he took him upon his back and 
swam over with him. Thus they passed three 
rivers. At Porto Nuovo, incautiously approach- 
ing too near a military post, they were heard by 
a sentinel, who challenged them ; but by stealthily 
shrinking back into the jungle, they escaped de- 
tection. The river being at that point near the 
sea, is very deep and wide ; and the tide, when 



CAPTAIN JAMES WILSON. 43 

Wilson and his companion reached the spot, was 
running with great rapidity. Not daring to wait 
for its ebb, he plunged in ; but the stream proved 
too powerful, and the boy, who clung to his back, 
becoming terrified at the breakers, clasped him so 
tightly that they both began to sink. After great 
effort he succeeded in diseutangling himself, and 
returned to the shore. Finding that it was quite 
impossible for them both to cross, he gave the boy 
directions to proceed to a place where he might 
be safe, (which the youth, however, never reached,) 
and plunging into the stream, again endeavored 
to push over. But the current was too powerful 
even for his unencumbered efforts : he was borne 
down by it, and again cast upon the bank he had 
so fruitlessly endeavored to quit. At the place 
where he landed, he perceived a canoe drawn up 
on the beach. This he immediately seized, and 
was dragging it down to the river, when two men 
rushed out upon him, and endeavored to hinder 
his purpose. By dint, however, of threats, per- 
suasions, and force, Wilson induced them to con- 
vey him across. 

He now hastened on with all his might, feeling 
that he should not be safe till he had put the 
Coleroon between himself and his pursuers. By 
break of day he reached the greatest arm of the 
river, the branches of which he had previously 
been crossing. Exhausted by fatigue, (he had 
travelled forty miles since sunset,) and dismayed 
at the width of the mighty stream, he hesitated for 
a few moments, and then plunged in. When about 
the middle, he came in contact with a piece of 



44 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

floating timber, to which he clung and rested for 
some time, how long he could not tell, for insen- 
sibility came over him. When consciousness re- 
turned, the sun had risen, and he had drifted 
some distance down the stream. Refreshed by 
his repose, he struck out for the opposite bank, 
which he reached in safety. Had he known, at 
the time, the dangers he braved in his passage, 
it is probable that even his lion-heart would have 
been appalled ; for the river abounded in alligators, 
which were so numerous that, in ordinary circum- 
stances, a slight noise would have brought them 
round any individual who attempted to ford the 
stream : an invisible Power on this occasion had, 
apparently, restrained them. 

Having crossed this river, he believed his dan- 
gers to be over, and making his way through a 
jungle, he reached the seacoast. There he 
mounted a sand-bank to reconnoitre the surround- 
ing country, when, to his consternation, he saw, 
and was seen by, a party of Hyder Ally's cavalry, 
who were engaged in scouring the district. They 
speedily seized him, stripped him naked, bound 
his hands behind his back, fastened a rope round 
his waist, and began to drive him, under a blaz- 
ing sun, to head-quarters. The officer in com- 
mand proceeded to interrogate him as to who he 
was and whither he was going. Captain Wilson 
ingenuously told him of his escape from Cudda- 
lore, and the events of the past night. When 
he came to describe the passage of the Coleroon, 
the chief interrupted him, exclaiming, " That's a 
lie : no man ever did or ever could pass the Cole- 



CAPTAIN JAMES WILSON. 45 

roon by swimming. It is all alive with, alligators. 
You could not dip the tip of your finger into that 
river and escape being seized by them and torn 
to pieces/ 7 When they found that he had really 
spoken the truth, they lifted up their hands and 
cried out, " This is God's man ! ;; 

He was, however, forthwith marched back to 
Cuddalore, naked, bleeding, and covered with 
blisters; and thence sent on to Seringapatam, a 
distance of five hundred miles, still on foot and 
naked. His sufferings on the journey were dread- 
ful. Insufficient and disgusting food, want of 
clothing, fatigue, intense heat, the cruelty of his 
captors, who goaded him with their lances till his 
flesh was covered with ulcerated wounds, and the 
loathsome dungeons into which he was thrust at 
night, made life an intolerable burden. The de- 
sign of these cruelties was to break his spirit, and 
induce him to take service under Hyder Ally. 
The repeated and urgent offers to this effect were 
accepted by some of his fellow-prisoners, but 
were by him rejected with indignation and dis- 
dain. 

Even greater sufferings awaited him at Seringa- 
patam. For nearly two years he was confined in 
a noisome prison, suffering from dysentery, which 
rapidly carried off his fellow-prisoners, to whom 
he was chained day and nighfc. Frequently a 
corpse was removed from his arm in the morning, 
that another sufferer might take his place, and 
sink and die in turn. Throughout this period 
his only bed was the bare earth, his only covering 
the few rags wrapped around him, his only food 



46 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

a pound of rice a day, and that so full of dirt and 
stones as to be almost uneatable, and utterly in- 
sufficient to supply his raging hunger. Like his 
fellow-sufferers, he was exposed to the cutting 
night-wind, the raging storm, the fierce noontide 
heat : he was infested, too, with vermin, and his 
fetters ate into his flesh. Yet he lived through 
it all. 

After twenty-two months of this dreadful tor- 
ture — this living death — the conclusion of a peace 
with the British government threw open the 
doors of Hyder's prison-house. One hundred 
and fifty-four persons had entered it, most of 
them the finest men in the British army, being 
the grenadier company of Colonel Macleod's regi- 
ment of Highlanders. There came out only 
thirty-two emaciated, naked creatures, covered 
with ulcers, unable to stand, and looking more 
dead than alive. 

Their liberation exposed them to a new peril, 
to which many of those who escaped from the 
dungeon fell victims. They were unable to ap- 
pease their craving for food, or to restrain their 
appetites. Along with others, Captain Wilson 
was thrown into a violent fever, became delirious, 
and for a fortnight his life was despaired of. 
Yet God, who had purposes of mercy towards 
him, and who had guarded him amidst so many 
perils, brought him safely through this danger 
also j and ere long he regained his former health 
and vigor. 

Still throughout this period his heart continued 
hard, and he knew not the Hand that had pre- 



CAPTAIN JAMES WILSON. 47 

served him : he lived, emphatically, " without 
God in the world." After a most prosperous 
and successful course of mercantile enterprise in 
India, he was returning to England, to sit down 
and enjoy his competency, when he had as a 
fellow-passenger the Rev. Mr. Thomas, one of the 
Baptist missionaries to Serampore, who was re- 
visiting his native land. Captain Wilson, who 
was still an infidel, had repeated debates with 
him on the subject of religion, during the voyage; 
but so inveterate did' his unbelief seem, that Mr. 
Thomas remarked to the chief officer of the ship, 
that he should have much more hope of convert- 
ing the Lascars to Christianity than Captain Wil- 
son. But that which is impossible with man is 
possible with God. Captain Wilson settled at 
Portsea, where a discussion with a Christian gen- 
tleman led him to attend a place of worship ; and 
impressions were there made upon his heart 
which issued in the surrender of his entire being 
to God. 

Some time after this happy change, he was 
meditating on the faith of Abraham, and the 
promptitude with which he obeyed the Divine 
call to leave his country and his home. He asked 
himself, Am I prepared to make such a sacrifice, 
and again to endure the privations, and brave the 
perils of the great deep ? Just then he heard of 
the design to send a missionary ship to cruise 
among the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Offering 
himself for the work, he was gratefully accepted, 
and had the honor, as we have previously men- 
tioned, of commanding the first missionary vessel 



48 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

to the South Sea Islands ; thus carrying the gos- 
pel to hundreds of thousands of fierce cannibals 
and benighted idolaters. In reviewing this mar- 
vellous, but perfectly authenticated, history, who 
can help acknowledging the hand of God, whose 
providence, shrouded in nrystery during the course 
of its development, comes out in vivid distinct- 
ness at its close ? a the depth of the riches 
both of the wisdom and the knowledge of G-od ! 
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways 
past finding out !" 

Among the fellow-sufferers with Captain Wil- 
son from the cruelty of Hyder Ally, was the late 
Philip Melvill, Esq., afterwards the pious and 
devout governor of Pendennis Castle, whose 
memoirs have proved a fund of instruction to the 
Christian Church. He, too, was in early life, to 
use his own words, " a wanderer from his father's 
house, a disciple in one of the worst schools in 
which a deluded world can place her votaries/' 

When serving in India, at the commencement 
of the war with Hyder Ally, Captain Melvill, 
with his regiment, formed part of a small body 
of troops who were despatched into the Mysore, 
and were there surrounded by an army which 
outnumbered them twenty-fold. A desperate 
action took place, in which the disciplined valor 
of the British was in vain opposed to the fearful 
odds against them. Very early in the engage- 
ment Captain Melvill was wounded, but not seri- 
ously, and he still kept at the head of his men. 
Soon afterwards, turning round to give the word 
of command, another ball struck him, shattering 



CAPTAIN MELVILL. 49 

the arm and grazing the breast : had it not been 
for the slight change in posture at the moment, 
it must have shot him through the heart. He 
fell, and very soon the ranks of the little army 
were broken, and the enemy rushing in, an indis- 
criminate slaughter ensued. In the carnage he 
received a sabre-cut on the other arm, which ren- 
dered it useless, by severing all the muscles. The 
victorious troops returned to strip and plunder 
the wounded or dead. Either in cruel sport, or 
for the purpose of securing the spoil for them- 
selves, the party who seized him took him by the 
feet and dragged him some distance along the 
ground, his head striking against every stone, and 
his disabled arms trailing painfully behind him. 
Having stripped him naked, they left him, ex- 
posed by day to the burning sun, and by night 
to the wild beasts, which he heard howling round 
him. He saw them indeed repeatedly pass, and 
mangle the remains of his comrades, while him 
they did not touch. During this period he suf- 
fered greatly from the pain of his wounds, but 
still more from intense thirst, which he vainly 
endeavored to assuage by gnawing whatever grass 
or herbs were within reach. At length his agony 
became so intolerable that he attempted suicide, 
but his disabled arms and his enfeebled strength 
happily failed him, and he found himself unable 
to grasp the weapon which he intended to be the 
instrument of self-destruction. A party of the 
enemy's cavalry, however, had been despatched 
to examine the field of action, and bring in such 
of the wounded as might yet survive, their design 
5 



50 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

being — as in Captain Wilson's case — to inflict 
upon them indignities and tortures, which might 
compel them to take service under Hyder Ally. 
Melvill fainted on being moved, and recovered 
from insensibility only to find himself a captive 
in the hands of a ruthless foe. Many of his 
fellow-prisoners sank under the privation and 
sufferings of their dungeon in the course of a very 
few days. Though fearfully wounded, Melvill 
bore up under his trials, and was removed in 
about a month to Bangalore, a fortress in the 
heart of Mysore, where he remained a prisoner 
for four years. He says of his condition here : 
" Our couch was the bare earth, thinly sprinkled 
over with straw : the wretched clothing we wore 
by day was our only covering by night : the 
sweepings of the granaries formed our only food. 
Swarms of odious and tormenting vermin bred in 
our wounds, and every abomination loathsome to 
sight and smell was allowed to accumulate in our 
dungeon, till it became intolerable to our guards. 
This full measure of woe was our portion during 
the remainder of our captivity. Many a victim 
sank under it, but more survived, to testify to the 
goodness of the Almighty in their deliverance 
from the sundry kinds of death which threatened 
to overwhelm us. How brittle is the thread of 
life in itself ! how indissoluble in connection with 
Him who hath given to man his appointed time 
upon earth ! Neither sword, nor sickness, nor con- 
suming grief, can execute its deadly purpose 
without his special commission : his ministers 
they are, and they cannot go beyond his word/' 



COLONEL GARDINER. 51 

At last deliverance arrived. Peace was con- 
cluded, and the -wretched prisoners were set free. 
A gaunt and hideous band they were : their bones 
standing out, and almost protruding through the 
skin : their eager, hungry eyes, their shrunken, 
pallid cheeks, their squalid filth and matted hair 
— all testified to the extremity of their sufferings. 
But, as in the case of Captain Wilson, Mr. Mel- 
vill's heart was melted neither by danger nor 
deliverance ; till, some years afterwards, the 
truths of the gospel aroused his slumbering con- 
science, and brought him a penitent to the feet 
of the Saviour. Then he could look back with 
wondering and adoring gratitude to the Almighty 
Friend who had watched over him at a time 
when he knew him not, and delivered him from 
death, when to die would have been to perish for 
ever. 

The narratives of Captain Wilson and Gover- 
nor Melvill will have reminded many readers of 
the eventful career of Colonel Grardiner, from the 
points of resemblance between them. A few 
brief notices of his well-known history will suffice 
for our present purpose. 

Colonel Grardiner entered the army when very 
young, and followed the Duke of Marlborough 
through his bloody and victorious campaign in 
Flanders. At the battle of Ramiliies, his escape 
almost seems miraculous. A ball entered his 
mouth, passed through the back of his neck, and 
just missing the spinal column, came out behind. 
The allied army pursuing the enemy, the wounded 
were left upon the field, surrounded by heaps of 



52 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

slain, and exposed to the inclemency of the wea- 
ther. In the morning, some French stragglers 
came up and began to plunder the slain. Seeing 
the wounded youth (he was but nineteen) appa- 
rently just expiring, one of them was on the point 
of thrusting his sword through his breast, to de- 
stroy the little remainder of life, when, at the 
critical moment, a cordelier who accompanied the 
plunderers came up and checked his hand, say- 
ing, " Do not kill that poor child." A little wine 
being poured down his throat, he recovered from 
his death-like swoon, and succeeded in inducing 
the men to carry him to a neighboring convent, 
which he reached in safety, though he often 
seemed to be dying whilst on the way, and even 
besought those who carried him to kill him, that 
he might escape the excruciating anguish of his 
wound. As he was two nights and a day before 
his wounds were dressed, he often spoke of it as 
another astonishing providence that he had not 
bled to death. Though kindly received at the 
convent, a new danger awaited him there, from 
the ignorance and rudeness of the barber-surgeon 
who attended him. But by the blessing of God 
he survived all. 

The next eleven years of his life, his biographer 
and friend, Dr. Doddridge, describes as " wild, 
thoughtless, and wretched." Throughout this 
interval he was constantly rushing into danger, in 
consequence of his hot, impetuous valor ; but still 
he was preserved by the watchful care of that 
God whom he was defying by his course of reck- 
less profligacy. Toward the close of this unhappy 



COLONEL GARDINER. 53 

period, two remarkable deliverances happened to 
him. As he was riding at full speed, down hill, 
in the streets of Calais, his horse fell, threw him 
over its head, pitched over him, and was killed 
by the fall ; y%t he received no hurt ! Shortly 
afterwards, on returning to England, so violent a 
storm broke upon the vessel, that the captain 
urged the passengers and crew to go to prayers 
immediately, if they meant to go at all, for that 
in a very few minutes they must be at the bottom. 
In this extremity of danger, he did pray with the 
utmost fervency ; and it was remarked, that whilst 
crying to God for deliverance, the storm abated, 
and they escaped. But so little affected was he 
by this rescue from impending death, that when 
some of his gay companions rallied him on the 
efficacy of his prayers, he excused himself from 
the scandal of being thought in earnest, by say- 
ing "that it happened at midnight, when his 
mother and aunt were asleep, or he should have 
left that part of the business to them." " He 
recounted these things to me," says Dr. Dod- 
dridge, " with the greatest humility, as showing 
how utterly unworthy he was of the miracle of 
grace, by which he was quickly after brought to 
so true and prevalent a sense of religion." How 
truly he became, what his biographer here terms 
him, "a miracle of grace," is too well known, 
however, to need further illustration at our 
hands. 

We will now give some illustrative incidents 
of the providential care of Gk>d extended to indi- 
5* 



54 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

viduals in humble life. We select and condense 
a few extracts from the " Life of George Noscoe, 
a Norwegian sailor." An introduction , from the 
pen of Dr. Raffles, of Liverpool, vouches for the 
truth of the narrative. 

When quite a lad, Noscoe went to sea, as a 
cabin-boy, and, as is often the case, was treated 
with the utmost cruelt} 7 by the mate of the ship, 
from whose hands he, on more than one occasion, 
narrowly escaped with his life. When at Gibral- 
tar, he was ordered to draw up a heavy bucket of 
water from over the ship's side. Not daring to 
disobey, he tried to do so, but was overbalanced 
by the weight, fell overboard, and sank to the 
bottom. Though four or five fathoms deep, the 
sea was so clear that the crew could see him, and 
were able to fish him up by means of a grappling- 
iron affixed to a long line. He was apparently 
dead, but after using means for his restoration 
for about half an hour, animation returned. 

The next day the brig sailed for the coast of 
Africa. As they lay becalmed, they were boarded 
by Algerine pirates, who plundered the ship of 
every morsel of provisions. The captain fell on 
his knees, imploring them to leave a little food to 
keep them from starvation, but they unfeelingly 
cut him down and left the vessel. Happily a 
breeze sprang up, which carried the remainder 
of the crew into Malaga. Here a new danger 
awaited them : they found the plague raging so 
fearfully that one vessel lost the whole of her 
officers and crew. God, however, in his great 



GEORGE NOSCOE. 55 

mercy, guarded them from "the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness/' and Noscoe returned to 
Norway in safety. 

Some years afterwards, during an action on 
board a French frigate in which Noscoe was 
serving, the man standing next him was killed 
by a ball, and Noscoe himself fell stunned and 
covered with blood. He was carried to the sur- 
geon, and on recovering from his swoon, was 
ordered to return to his gun. On reaching it he 
found that during his brief absence it had been 
dismounted, and every man in charge of it killed 
by the deadly fire of the enemy. He then went 
to the fourth gun, where three men had already 
fallen. Soon after, a shot came which split the 
gun-carriage, and took oif the leg of a man who 
stood just behind him. He picked up the sufferer, 
took him upon his back, and was carrying him 
below, when, as he reached the hatchway and 
was descending the ladder, another ball struck 
the burden from his back. When the engage- 
ment ceased, the deck was piled with corpses and 
drenched with blood ; yet was Noscoe's life again 
spared. 

He records many more dangers escaped, some- 
times in action, sometimes in his endeavors to 
desert from the French to the English service, 
the latter of which he, in common with his coun- 
trymen, much preferred. These incidents in his 
life, however, from want of space we are compelled 
to omit, with the exception of the following one, 
which happened to him when he was escaping 
from a French ship of war on the coast of 



56 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM TERIL. 

Madagascar. Having reached the shore in a boat 
with a comrade who joined him, they wandered 
through the wood in the mountains to escape the 
parties sent in pursuit. Night came on, and 
they heard the roaring of the wild beasts which 
fill those solitudes. They therefore resolved to 
climb a tree, under which at the time they were 
sitting. They did so, and before long, by the 
light of the rising moon, they saw two tigers 
making for the spot which they had just left. 
"The tree," says Noscoe, "was on the very brink 
of a hill : its root was grafted in the rock, and a 
little moss and earth covered it over. As soon 
as the tigers got under the tree, they could smell 
where we had been sitting, and began to tear up 
the ground : we were afraid they would tear up 
the tree by the roots; but the same God that 
preserved me from the watery grave, and from 
the ball of the cannon, and from the power of the 
pestilence, also preserved me from the jaws of the 
tiger; for, behold, God was there, and I knew it 
not. After they had been scratching and roaring 
for about half an hour, they went away, roaring 
as they went, and we saw them no more." 

His career of peril was not yet over. Escapes 
from hunger, from sickness, from drowning, and 
from fire, still awaited him; but we need not 
follow his eventful career to a greater length. It 
is sufficient to say, that at last the extraordinary 
dealings of Providence with which he had been 
visited, led him to deep self-examination, which 
issued, under the blessing of God, in unfeigned 
repentance. He became "a new creature in 



DR. DODDRIDGE. 57 

Christ Jesus," and for twenty-nine years and a 
half gave evidence of the reality of the change 
which had passed upon him by a holy and useful 
life, crowned at Liverpool by a peaceful and tri- 
umphant death. 

The narratives which we have hitherto present- 
ed to our readers, have detailed deliverances ex- 
perienced by persons at a time when they were 
actively engaged in the business of life. New 
views of our subject open to us, when we consider 
the numerous instances in which the providence 
of God has watched over the infancy and youth 
of those who, by their labors, proved blessings to 
the world and the church. 

The pious Doddridge was, at the moment of 
his birth, so frail and feeble that he was laid 
aside as dead. One of the attendants, however, 
thought that she perceived some faint indications 
of life, and by her fostering care the spark, just 
flickering on the point of extinction, was pre- 
served ; but he always continued to be of so deli- 
cate and consumptive a frame, that with each 
succeeding birthday he expressed his surprise 
that his frail life should have continued for 
another year. This fact may have proved to him 
an additional stimulus to diligence and activity, 
as we know that a similar one did to Richard 
Baxter, who, to use his own phrase, wrote " with 
one foot in the grave." They both entered upon 
every engagement with a solemn sense that it 
might, very probably, prove their last. Whatso- 
ever their hands found to do, they did with all 
their might ; because there is no work, no device, 



58 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

found in the grave, whither they were hastening. 
But the Most High, contrary to all their expecta- 
tions, not only gave them this incentive to in- 
tensity of daily action, but lengthened out their 
laborious and useful lives through a long term of 
years. 

John Wesley, like Dr. Doddridge, was only 
saved from death in childhood by what the world 
would call the merest chance. His father was 
aroused from sleep by a cry of fire from the street. 
He started up, little supposing that it was his 
own house which was on fire. On opening his 
bedroom-door he found the place full of smoke, 
and the roof already burned through. Directing 
his wife and two daughters to fly for their lives, 
he hastened to the nursery, where the maid was 
sleeping with five children. She snatched up the 
youngest in her arms, and bade the others follow 
her : three did so, but John was not awakened 
by the noise, and still slept on. In the hurry 
and agitation of the moment he was forgotten. 
All the rest of the family were in safety, some . 
having leaped from the windows as the only 
means of escape, while Mrs. Wesley, to use her 
own expression, " waded through the fire/' At 
this moment, when they were rejoicing in their 
deliverance, John, who had not been missed, was 
heard crying in the nursery. To rush back into 
the house, and spring upon the stairs in order to 
rescue him, was the work of a moment with the 
father j but, to his consternation and horror, he 
found that the staircase was just burned through, 
and any attempt to pass further was hopeless. 



JOHN WESLEY. 59 

In despair of the child's deliverance, the father 
fell upon his knees in the hall with the flames all 
round him, and commended its young spirit to 
God. John had been aroused by the light, had 
uttered the cry of terror which had informed his 
parents of his danger, had endeavored to escape 
by the door, but found all egress impossible : he 
had then climbed upon a chest up to the window, 
and he was seen from the yard. There was no- 
time to procure a ladder, for the flames were 
already leaping towards him, and seemed to be 
lapping at him with their forked fiery tongues. 
In a few moments more it would have been all 
over; but He to whom " belong the issues from 
death" had a work for that child to accomplish. 
One man was instantly hoisted upon the shoulders 
of another: the window was thus reached, and 
the child was saved. A moment afterwards, the 
roof fell in. When he was saved the father cried 
out, "Come, neighbors, let us kneel down together, 
and give thanks to Grod ! He has given me all 
my eight children : let the house go, I am rich 
enough." Could he but have foreseen the future 
of that child, so wonderfully preserved from the 
flames, the good old man's gratitude would have 
been even more intense. Mr. Wesley himself 
always looked back with special feeling towards 
this deliverance. Under one of the portraits of 
him, published during his lifetime, is a represen- 
tation of the house in flames, with the motto, "Is 
not this a brand plucked from the burning V 

Philip Henry, father of the commentator, and 
one of the most devoted and useful preachers of 



60 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

his day, had, in his boyhood, an escape from fire 
scarcely less remarkable than that of John "Wes- 
ley. He was at Westminster school, where he 
had formed the dangerous habit of reading in 
bed. One night, as he was thus occupied, he 
was overcome with sleep ; and the candle having 
fallen, the bed took fire, and was partly consumed 
before he awoke. Nothing but the arrival of 
speedy and sufficient help saved him from death. 

Dr. Adam Clarke, in his boyhood, escaped 
from danger even more imminent. He rode a 
horse down to a large river, which flowed near 
his father's house, and attempted to cross it : the 
stream proved both deeper and stronger than he 
anticipated. The horse lost its footing and was 
swept down the current. He was speedily car- 
ried off its back, lost his consciousness, sank, and 
continued in the water he knew not how long ; 
for the next thing he could remember was his re- 
covering from insensibility on the bank of the 
river. He must have been drifted there by the 
stream, and the hot summer sun must have acted 
as a restorative to the system. Sixty years after- 
ward, he related this fact in a sermon preached 
before the Royal Humane Society. 

A providential escape of a similar character 
was experienced by the excellent and devout 
Cecil. Whilst quite a youth, he was playing in 
a yard at the back of his father's house, in which 
were several large tanks of water. One of these, 
which was sunk in the earth, was frozen over, 
and a hole had been made in the ice for the pur- 
pose of watering the horses. At this hole Richard 



RICHARD CECIL. 61 

Cecil was playing with a stick, when suddenly 
his foot slipped, he plunged into the hole, and 
was carried under the ice. The workmen in his 
father's employ had received particular orders 
over-night to go to work in a part of a dye-house 
from which this piece of water was not visible ; 
but without any assignable reason, they disobeyed 
the orders given them, and were at work near the 
tank in question. So sudden and so noiseless 
had been the plunge, that none of them perceived 
it at the time ; but a few minutes afterward, one 
of the men thought he saw a scarlet cloak appear 
at the hole, and resolved to go and see what it 
was. In attempting to get it out, he discovered 
it to be the scarlet cloak of his young master. 
The boy was drawn from the freezing water 
apparently dead, but proper means being used 
to restore animation, after long efforts life re- 
turned. 

Some time after this, Cecil was caught by the 
coat in the wheel of a horse-mill, and was on the 
point of being drawn in and crushed to atoms. 
With marvellous quickness and presence of mind, 
he noticed that the head of the horse which 
worked the mill was within reach of his feet ; 
he therefore dashed them violently into the ani- 
mal's face, and thus checking its progress, stop- 
ped the mill, and then succeeded in extricating 
himself. 

He lamented in after life that these events, so 
fitted to arrest the mind, and lead him to a grate- 
ful dedication of himself to Grod, should have 
produced no more than a mere temporary excite- 



62 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

merit of feeling. For years afterwards he lived 
in sin, and sought to silence the accusations of 
conscience by skepticism ; till at length God, 
who had guarded his life amidst these perils, in 
great mercy delivered him from that fearful con- 
dition of spiritual darkness, and made him " a 
burning and a shining light." 

Instances similar to those adduced in this 
chapter might be indefinitely multiplied, but the 
truth intended to be enforced has been, perhaps, 
sufficiently illustrated. We have seen, in the 
course of our narrative, many individuals rescued 
from imminent danger by means the most ob- 
viously providential in their character. At the 
time of their escape they have been ignorant, or 
unmindful, of the great Deliverer who rescued 
* their souls from death f but in after life they 
have, with adoring gratitude, owned " the good 
hand of God upon them." There are few lives, 
however, in which at some period or other re- 
markable deliverances have not been enjoyed. 
Yet how rare the instances in which the life for- 
feited by sin, threatened by danger, yet preserved 
by God, is devoted to his glory. Still, as with 
the lepers healed by our Lord, 

" Ten cleansed, and only one remain ! 
Who would have thought our nature's stain 
Was dyed so foul, so deep in grain ?" 

Alas ! that life should be spared only to give 
space for the man to fill up the measure of his 
iniquities to the uttermost ! — only that he, by 
despising the riches of His goodness and for- 



THOMAS PAINE. 63 

bearance and long-suffering, may treasure up 
unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and 
revelation of the righteous judgment of G-od ! 
Of this we have a mournful illustration in the 
life of the notorious and profane infidel, Thomas 
Paine. He himself thus recites some of the 
events which happened to him during the reign 
of terror in France : — 

" I was one of the nine members," he says, 
" who composed the first committee of constitu- 
tion. Six of them have been destroyed : Sieyes 
and myself have survived — he, by bending ; I, 
by not bending : the other survivor joined Robe- 
spierre, and with him signed the warrant for my 
arrest. After the fall of Robespierre, he in his 
turn was seized and imprisoned. 

u Herault Sechelles was my suppliant as mem- 
ber of committee : that is, he was to supply my 
place if I had not accepted or had resigned it. 
He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg with me, 
was taken to the tribunal and to the guillotine ; 
and I, his principal, was left. 

" There were but two foreigners in the con- 
vention, Anacharsis Cloots and myself. We 
were both put out of the convention by the same 
vote, arrested by the same order, and carried to 
prison together. He was guillotined, and I was 
again left. 

"Joseph Lebon, one of the vilest wretches 
who ever lived, who made the streets of Arras 
run red with blood, was my suppleaiit for the de- 
partment of the Pays de Calais. When I was 
put out of the convention, he came and took my 



64 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

place : when I was liberated from prison, and 
voted again into the convention, he was sent to 
the same prison, and took my place there ; and 
he went to the guillotine instead of me. He 
supplied my place all the way through. 

" One hundred and sixty-eight persons were 
taken out of the Luxembourg in one night, and 
a hundred and sixty of them guillotined the 
next day, of which I know I was to have been 
one; and the manner I escaped that fate is 
curious, and has all the appearance of accident. 
The room in which I was lodged was one of a 
long range, the doors of which opened outward 
and fell flat against the wall, so that when it was 
open the inside of the door appeared outward. 
When persons by scores and by hundreds were 
taken out of the prison for the guillotine, it 
was always done by night, and those who per- 
formed that office had a private mark or signal 
by which they knew what rooms to go to, and 
what number to take. 

" We were four, and the door of our room was 
marked with that number in chalk ; but it hap- 
pened, if happening is the proper word, the mark 
was put on the door when it was open and flat 
against the wall, and thereby came on the inside 
when we shut it for the night — and the de- 
stroying angel passed by me. A few days after- 
ward Robespierre fell. During the whole of my 
imprisonment there was no time when my life 
was worth twenty-four hours' purchase." 

And yet thus warned, and thus marvellously 
preserved, he continued insensible to the kind 



THOMAS PAINE. 65 

and gracious Hand which had sustained him; 
and he died, as is well known, with his mouth 
filled with alternate blasphemies and supplications 
for mercy. * 

* For a full proof of this assertion, see "A Refuta- 
tion of the Theological Works of Thomas Paine, not 
noticed by Bishop Watson in his Apology for the Bible." 
By the editor of this yolume. Nashville: Stevenson 
& Owen. 1855. 



REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 



CHAPTER II. 

FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED BY SIGNAL DELIVERANCES 
FROM IMMINENT PERILS. 

Though "the Lord is good to all, and his 
tender mercies are over all his works/' yet the 
promises of providential care are made, the 
pledges of it are given, to the righteous exclu- 
sively. With them it is a matter of express 
stipulation and covenant, that " all things" shall 
" work together for their good." " Behold, the 
eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon 
them that hope in his mercy." His "eyes 
run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to 
show himself strong in the behalf of those whose 
heart is perfect toward him." The ultimate 
design of universal providence is, the welfare and 
safety of " them that love God, who are the call- 
ed according to his purpose." Just as a kind 
and affectionate father regulates his household, 
and manages his estate, with a special reference 
to the interests of his children; so does "our 
Father who is in heaven" make the noblest inter- 
ests of his adopted family the end and purpose of 
his providential government. 

Scripture furnishes us with innumerable in- 
stances of this. When the swollen clouds and 
the heavy bursting earth were ready to pour forth 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 67 

their torrents, they must wait till Noah had en- 
tered the ark and God had shut him in, " and on 
the same day were all the fountains of the great 
deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were 
opened/' When the tempest of fire was pre- 
pared to destroy the doomed and guilty cities of 
the plain, and the ministers of vengeance had 
waited through the night whilst Lot lingered, 
they at length hurry him from the city toward 
the place of refuge, saying, " Haste thee thither; 
for we cannot do any thing till thou be come 
thither. " Our Lord sets the same truth before 
us in the parable of the householder, to whom his 
servants come to say that tares have sprung up 
in his wheat, and to ask permission to uproot 
them ; but he refuses, " lest ye root up also the 
wheat with thein." The presence, too, of Paul 
and his companions in the storm-tossed vessel 
saved the mariners and their fellow-passengers 
from a watery grave. We shall find abundant 
confirmation of this truth, and fulfilment of these 
promises, in the lives of those who in subsequent 
times have committed themselves to God by faith 
and prayer. 

Periods of persecution have singularly illus- 
trated this providential care of God for his people. 
In such times his hand has been as it were 
visibly stretched out, protecting them from the 
fury of their enemies, and rescuing them when 
all hope of deliverance from man seemed to have 
terminated. Instead of ranging over the wide 
field of illustration presented by ecclesiastical his- 
tory, we shall confine ourselves to some incidents 



68 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

connected with the long and cruel severities prac- 
ticed by the Roman Catholics of France upon the 
Protestants in that kingdom. 

On one occasion the Prince of Conde and 
Admiral Coligny — the leaders of the Huguenot 
party — had been driven from their homes by their 
opponents, who had attempted cruelly to massa- 
cre them; they took to flight accordingly with 
their helpless and terrified families. " The 
Prince of Conde set out silently," says Matthieu, 
an eye-witness of the events he narrates, " but 
his situation touched all hearts with pity, when 
they saw the first prince of the blood setting 
forward in the intensest and extremest heat, with 
his wife on the point of giving birth to a child, 
and three little children borne after them, fol- 
lowed by the now motherless family of Coligny, 
of whom only one was able to walk. The wife 
of D'Andelot, too, was there with her little 
girl only two years old, and several other ladies. 
The only escort for this troop of helpless women 
and children was one hundred and fifty soldiers, 
headed by the two brave and affectionate fathers. 

"They journeyed on as rapidly as possible, 
for their only hope of safety lay in crossing the 
Loire before they could be overtaken, and then 
seeking shelter in Rochelle ; but the whole 
country was filled with hostile troops, and the 
bridges over the Loire were already occupied. 
They therefore determined to attempt a ford not 
commonly known, and arrived at it when the river, 
usually broad and furious, was so far diminished 
by the long drought, that they crossed without 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 69 

difficulty, the prince carrying his youngest infant 
on his arm, clasped to his bosom. But scarcely 
had they reached the southern bank, when turn- 
ing round they discovered the cavalry of their 
enemies in full pursuit, crowding rapidly upon 
the opposite side. An event now happened cer- 
tainly very remarkable. Without any apparent 
cause, a sudden swell of waters came foaming 
and rushing down the stream, and in an in- 
stant filling the channel, rendered the ford im- 
passable, and the defenceless company were thus 
rescued from the jaws of their destroyer. Can 
we wonder that men taught to rest upon Provi- 
dence, and discern the Almighty hand in the 
events of their agitated lives, should have regard- 
ed this as a signal interposition in their favor, and 
an undoubted sign that his arm was extended for 
their preservation?"* 

This fact rests not upon the Protestant histo- 
rians alone. In its main features it is abundantly 
confirmed by contemporary Roman Catholic wri- 
ters : among the rest by the Jesuit Davila. 

On several occasions, the life of Admiral Co- 
ligny was attempted by assassination, but it was 
as marvellously preserved as it had been in the 
above instance. Once a servant in his employ 
was tempted by the offer of a large reward by 
Catherine, the infamous queen-mother, to poison 
his master. The plot was on the very point of 
succeeding, when the perturbation and agitation 
evinced in the man's countenance excited sus- 

* Mrs. Marsh's " History of the Huguenots." 



70 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

picion of treachery. He was seized, and con- 
fessed the intended crime just in time to save the 
admiral's life. It is true that Coligny did at last 
fall under the hand of assassins at the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew ; yet his days were lengthened 
out till his work was done. 

During the siege of Rochelle, the Protestant 
party were reduced to the utmost straits by 
famine. " They had eaten," says a contemporary, 
" first the asses, then the mules : horses, cats, 
rats, and moles, and the flesh of dogs, were sold 
in the open market. When there was nothing 
more of that sort to be got, they boiled leather, 
the skins of dogs and horses : then emptied the 
tanners' and curriers' yards, using leather and 
the hoofs and horns of oxen and horses." After 
their faith and endurance had been thus severely 
tested by the horrors of famine, and when it was 
impossible that they could hold out much longer, 
a supply came scarcely less marvellous and abun- 
dant than that of the quails in the wilderness. 
The most extraordinary quantities of fish which 
had ever been known within the memory of man 
poured into the harbor. At low water, the peo- 
ple went down to the beach with their weapons in 
their hands, and baskets slung to their sides, 
which they filled with the utmost ease. Abun- 
dance took the place of famine, and a sufficiency 
of food was enjoyed during the whole time the 
siege lasted. It will not be wondered at that the 
ministers, during the continuance of the siege, 
constantly appealed to this fact as a proof that 
God was with them, and availed themselves of it 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 71 

as an argument to induce in their flocks a more 
resolute and strenuous determination not to yield. 
"To this day," says D'Aubigne, writing a few 
years after the event, " the people of Rochelle keep 
pictures in their houses in memory of this fact."* 
Merivault records the following incident as 
having happened at a subsequent siege of the 
same city : " During the extremity of hunger 
among the Rochellois, some charitable individuals, 
who had previously formed secret magazines, re- 
lieved their starving brethren without blazing 
abroad their good deeds. The widow of a mer- 
chant named Prosni, who was left with four child- 
ren, had liberally distributed her stores, while she 
had any thing remaining, among her less fortunate 
neighbors; and whenever she was reproached 
with profusion and want of foresight by a rich 
sister-in-law of less benevolent temper, she was in 
the habit of replying, ' The Lord will provide for 
us/ At length her stock of food was exhausted, 
and she was spurned from the door of her wealthy 
relative to whom she applied for help. She re- 
turned home, destitute, broken-hearted, and pre- 
pared to die, together with her children. But it 
seemed as though the mercies once displayed at 
Zarephath were again to be manifested, and that 
there was still a barrel and a cruse in reserve for 
the widow, who, humbly confident in the bounty 

* A similar instance is recorded of some of the Puri- 
tan emigrants to America in the seventeenth century, 
who, disappointed of receiving the expected supplies, 
were maintained and preserved from starvation in a 
like mode, till their long-looked-for vessel arrived. 



7Z REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

of Providence, had shared her last morsel with 
the supplicant in affliction. Her little ones met 
her with cries of joy. During her short absence, 
a stranger visiting the house had deposited in it 
a bag of flour, and the single bushel it contained 
was so husbanded as to preserve their lives to the 
end of the siege. Their unknown benefactor was 
never revealed ; but the pious mother was able to 
reply to her unbelieving kinsman, ' The Lord hath 
provided/ " 

The dragonnades which preceded and followed 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, involved 
the Protestants in frightful peril, and witnessed 
many signal deliverances. Without pronouncing 
an opinion upon the course pursued by some of 
the Huguenots, we cannot be blind to the fact, 
that those who took the sword perished by the 
sword ; while very many of those who, when they 
suffered, threatened not, but committed them- 
selves to Him that judgeth righteously, escaped. 
The history of Paul Kabaut, one of the most 
earnest, devoted, and daring of the " pastors of 
the desert," affords a striking illustration of this. 

He was born 9th January, 1718, and as he 
attained manhood, he entered upon the pastoral 
office, though it was an almost certain path to the 
gibbet or the wheel. Where he resided during 
the half century of his ministry it would be diffi- 
cult to say, for during almost the whole of that 
time he was in hiding, while during a large part 
of it a price was set upon his head. So far from 
coinciding with his brethren in their armed re- 
sistance to the troops sent against them, he ever 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. <d 

maintained that readiness to suffer martyrdom 
was the surest means of promoting the cause of 
Christ. On one occasion he met a party of armed 
men proceeding to liberate one of the Protestant 
pastors. His own arrest at that time seemed in- 
evitable. He stopped them, and with tears earn- 
estly besought them, that if he should fall into 
the hands of the persecutors, they would not im- 
bitter his last moments by attempting his rescue 
by force of arms ; and he extracted from them a 
promise to this effect, as the only condition on 
which he would continue to hold the pastoral 
office. Though a proscribed outlaw, he preached 
constantly and boldly, and in the proclamation of 
the gospel encountered perils from which almost 
all save himself would have shrunk with terror. 
Yet he saw nearly all his associates cut off by 
violent and bloody deaths, whilst he died in his 
bed at the age of seventy-seven. 

Among the vicissitudes of danger and escape 
which marked his adventurous life were the fol- 
lowing. On one occasion his hiding-place was 
discovered, and he was traced to the house of a 
baker; the place was forthwith invested, and 
every avenue of escape blocked up. Hastily 
putting on the dress of a working baker, and 
dusting himself over with flour, he took an empty 
wine-flask in his hand, and, as though going out 
to procure wine, boldly passed the sentinels, who 
failed to recognize him in his disguise, which 
was rendered more complete by his holding 
a rose in his mouth ; thus hiding the lower part 
of bis face. 
7 



74 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

On another occasion, when closely pursued, he 
took refuge in the humble dwelling of a poor 
woman, who had given birth to a child only a 
few days previously. Regardless of her own 
condition, she rose from her bed, sent away the 
nurse, took the infant on her knees, disguised 
Rabaut in her own nightcap, and put him into 
bed. The soldiers arrived, and mistaking the 
mother (with whom they were unacquainted) for 
the nurse, and Rabaut for the mother, left the 
house, supposing that they had been mistaken in 
their suspicions. 

Although Rabaut made every possible exertion 
for escaping the perils which beset him, and 
though he never had recourse to violence, yet he 
did not hesitate to face danger if the cause of 
Christ or of his brethren required it. When the 
prisons and galleys were crowded with Protest- 
ants, and the scaffold drenched with their blood, 
he alone ventured to present a petition to the 
Marquis de Paulmy, governor of the province. 
He met him on the high road, surrounded by his 
guard of honor, fearlessly but respectfully ac- 
costed him, and made known his wishes. The 
marquis, charmed by his free, dauntless bearing, 
and the spirit of self-devotion he evinced, con- 
versed with him some time, and then generously 
let him go free. At that time his arrest would 
have been followed by his certain and immediate 
execution. 

As intimidation was found ineffectual, and as 
the providence of G-od bore him harmless amidst 
all the attempts which were made upon his life, 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 75 

the government, in despair of silencing him by 
other means, offered him a large bribe if he would 
quit France. This he, of course, indignantly re- 
jected, and he continued to preach, till at length 
his constancy was rewarded by his living to hear 
liberty of conscience and freedom of worship pro- 
claimed by law. 

But his perils were not yet over. In his old 
age the French revolution broke out, and not- 
withstanding his sufferings in the cause of liberty, 
he was arrested by order of the convention, and 
sentenced to the guillotine. • His advanced years and 
infirmities failed to soften the hard hearts of the 
wretches who were sent by the Jacobin govern- 
ment to superintend the judicial murders at 
Nismes. Too feeble to walk, he was thrown 
across an ass, and thus conveyed to prison, whence 
he was only to come out to the scaffold. But he 
was not forgotten, even in this the most perilous 
crisis of his adventurous life. The fall of Robe- 
spierre restored him, and thousands more, to 
liberty. Full of years, and with his death-bed 
surrounded by loving friends, " he fell asleep" on 
the 5th September, 1794, the sole survivor of the 
u pastors of the desert." 

The interesting field of Christian missions 
has exemplified in a remarkable manner the pro- 
tecting care of God as extended to his servants, 
who have gone forth — often with their lives in 
their hands — to preach his gospel. In this de- 
partment of our subject, indeed, the illustrations 
could be almost indefinitely multiplied, but the 
following instances will sufficiently prove to the 



(b REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

reader how safe and secure are those who commit 
themselves to the providence of God, while hum- 
bly endeavoring to perform his will. 

Few histories contain the narratives of more 
signal and numerous Divine interpositions than 
that of the Moravian missionaries in Greenland. 
The simple faith and self-devotedness with which 
they addressed themselves to their work, in calm 
reliance upon Him who had promised to " supply 
all their need/' seems to have received a special 
blessing. Some of them plunged into the depths 
of that barren ice-bound region, and took up their 
abode among the eternal snows which encircle the 
pole. Their life depended upon the arrival of a 
vessel annually freighted from Denmark with 
provisions, clothing, and other necessaries; and 
though, by the detention of this ship, they were 
often reduced to great suffering, yet they were 
never left utterly destitute. The vessel always 
arrived before their supplies were quite exhausted, 
nor was it ever wrecked. The latter circumstance 
■ is a most remarkable one, when we remember the 
dangerous character of the seas through which 
the ship had to sail, and the numerous wrecks 
which annually occur in that inhospitable and 
terrible coast. 

Nor were the providential interpositions on 
their behalf confined to the safe and timely ar- 
rival of their annual consignment of provisions. 
Oftentimes, when suffering from famine, some 
altogether unexpected supply came. Once they 
were reduced so low that some old tallow candles 
were their only food, and even these were on the 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. t i 

point of being exhausted, when a Grreenlander, 
an entire stranger to them, and with whom they 
had had no previous intercourse, travelled forty 
leagues to sell them some seals, oatmeal, and train 
oil — choice delicacies compared with the nauseous 
fare which had been their previous diet. At an- 
other time, they had just returned empty-handed 
from a distant and wearisome journey in search 
of food, when a native brought them the intelli- 
gence that a Dutch ship was lying at some dis- 
tance to the south, the captain of which had let- 
ters for them. At once they despatched mes- 
sengers to it, who found on board a cask of pro- 
visions from a friend at Amsterdam, with a letter 
promising to repeat the gift if it were needed. 
One night they were returning home exhausted 
with hunger and toil, when a storm suddenly 
burst upon them, and drove their frail boat upon 
a desolate island — a circumstance which rendered 
it impossible for them to proceed till the wind 
should abate, or change its direction. Enfeebled 
as they were by long fasting, they would soon 
have been unable to manage their little skiff in 
those tempestuous seas, and must probably have 
perished on the island, or in the endeavor to leave 
it, when an eagle fell in their way, which they 
succeeded in killing, and thus supplied their 
craving hunger and recruited their failing strength. 
But lack of food was not the only peril to which 
they were exposed. They were surrounded by 
other dangers, as the following oft-told but ever- 
interesting narrative will show. 

At the period when the incident about to be 
7* 



<0 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

narrated happened, they occupied three mission 
stations on the coast of Labrador, under the 
superintendence of Samuel Liebrisch, who resided 
*t Nain, the most southern of them. It was Lie- 
brisch's duty to visit at intervals the other two 
stations, the most distant of which, Okkah, lay 
about one hundred and fifty miles to the north. 
In making his journeys to these places, he travel- 
led, like the Esquimaux, in sledges drawn by dogs 
over the frozen sea. In calm frosty weather, this 
is a pleasant and rapid mode of transit. The 
dogs bound merrily along over the glassy surface 
at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour, and 
the motion of the sledge is smooth and agreeable. 
But there are two dangers to be apprehended : 
the one, a thaw, rendering the ice rotten and 
causing it to give way ; the other, the rising of a 
storm, which, driving the waves with great force 
under the ice, cracks it into pieces, and some- 
rimes breaks it up altogether. 

On the morning of March 11th, 1782, a mis- 
sionary party set out from Naiii for Okkak, fearing 
neither of these evils : the morning was clear, 
calm, and frosty, the stars shining with great 
brilliancy, and the ice in the best possible order. 
They, therefore, hoped to reach Okkak in three 
or four days at furthest ; but shortly after starting 
they met with some Esquimaux, who warned 
them that the ice was beginning to break up, 
and advised them to return. As there seemed 
nothing to warrant the apprehensions expressed, 
they supposed that the Esquimaux were giving a 
false alarm, from a desire to have the society of 



EAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 79 

their friends who were driving the sledges of the 
missionaries. They, therefore, determined to pro- 
ceed. At midday there was still no appearance 
of change in the weather — all seemed bright and 
calm as before ; but a disagreeable sensation, as 
though there was a strong ground-swell, causing 
the ice to heave and roll beneath them, began to 
be felt. They now stopped, and one of the party 
getting out put his ear to the ice, and heard a 
harsh, hollow, grating sound, which was at once 
recognized as the warning of danger. They, 
therefore, deemed it prudent to keep closer to 
the shore. Cracks and fissures in the hitherto 
unbroken surface — sometimes extending two or 
three feet in breadth — now began to appear. 
These, however, are common, and to those accus- 
tomed to sledge travelling are of little conse- 
quence. The dogs easily leap over such inter- 
stices, drawing the sledges after them, and it 
only requires some degree of caution and skill, 
on the part of the travellers, to maintain the 
balance. Towards evening, however, the sky 
became clouded, the wind arose, and all the indi- 
cations of an approaching storm manifested them- 
selves. The snow began to drift violently, and 
the sledges, instead of gliding smoothly and 
steadily onward, acquired an oscillating and un- 
dulatory motion. Noises were heard in all direc- 
tions; sometimes from the bursting up of the 
ice-plains, loud and violent, like the report of a 
park of artillery; sometimes harsh, dull, and 
grating, as the vast disrupted masses ground 
against one another, being forced into collision by 



80 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

the combined action upon them of the winds and 
waves. 

The Esquimaux, well aware what these signs 
portended, drove with all possible speed towards 
the shore ; but as they approached it, they were 
appalled at the spectacle which presented itself. 
The ice, rent away from the rocks, was forced up 
and down as the waves sank and rose, breaking 
into fragments against the cliffs with terrific vio- 
lence. The noise from the roaring of the wind, 
and the crashing and bursting of the ice-plains, 
was tremendous, and as the snow drifted heavily 
at the time, the travellers could neither see nor 
hear distinctly.' The affrighted dogs, too, could 
scarcely be urged forward, and frequently stopped 
altogether. The field of ice on which they were 
was in ceaseless motion, sometimes raised far above 
the level of the coast, and at others depressed 
below it, as the stormy waters beneath happened 
to rise or fall. It was only at the moment when 
the ice and the top of the cliffs were parallel, that 
they could hope to land at all. If they made the 
attempt and failed, their destruction was inevita- 
ble. Having committed themselves, therefore, 
to God, they watched their opportunity, and im- 
pelling their terrified dogs forward at the critical 
moment, the whole party providentially succeeded 
in gaining the shore. 

Scarcely had they done so, and uttered a fer- 
vent ejaculation of praise to their great Deliverer, 
when they beheld a scene of awful and tremen- 
dous grandeur. The field of ice from which they 
had the instant before escaped, burst asunder 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 81 

with a deafening roar into ten thousand frag- 
ments, and was swallowed up in the yeast of 
waves. Then, as if at a given signal, the whole 
mass, for miles in extent, burst up, and was over- 
whelmed by the raging sea. 

The missionaries fell upon their knees, and 
poured out their hearts in gratitude for their 
almost miraculous deliverance; and even the 
heathen Esquimaux, awed at the sight, acknow- 
ledged that this was none other than " the hand 
of God." But their perils were far from over. 
The tempest was howling round them with in- 
creased fury, and they had no shelter, save such 
as the snow could be made to afford : their stock 
of provisions was but small, and it might be very 
many days before the ice formed again, so as to 
allow of their escape from the spot, which was at 
once their refuge and their dreary prison. 

Their first effort was to build a snow-house. 
This they completed by about nine o'clock at 
night, and crept into it, thankful for even this poor 
shelter from the keen piercing wind, which had 
become so violent that they could hardly stand 
against it. The Esquimaux slept instantly and 
soundly; but, wearied as Liebrisch was with the 
toils of the day, he could not sleep : agitation 
and excitement of feeling kept him awake. Well 
for them was it that he could not ; for it proved 
the deliverance of the whole party from a new 
and unexpected danger. About two o'clock in 
the morning, he fancied that some of the water 
which dripped upon him tasted salt. The next 
drop which fell on his lips confirmed his sus- 



82 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

picions : they had built their hut too near 
the beach, and the tide, brought up by the 
wind, was breaking over and surrounding them. 
He instantly started up and gave the alarm. 
The Esquimaux proceeded with all possible 
speed to cut a passage through the side of the 
hut farthest from the sea. Before they could 
effect this, the surf broke violently over them, 
and they had barely succeeded in escaping to a 
slight eminence, when a towering wave swept 
away the hut and all that was left in it. Thus a 
second time haa the preserving providence of 
God delivered them. Eventually, too, they were 
enabled to reach the place of their destination in 
safety. 

Of a different, but no less remarkable character, 
was the escape of a party of Moravian missiona- 
ries, laboring in another part of the world. They 
had penetrated far into the woods, and stopped 
for the night, after a day of excessive toil, at the 
hut of a friendly native Indian. Two or three 
barrels of gunpowder stood in the apartment, and 
through carelessness in opening them, a portion 
of their dangerous contents was mingled with the 
straw which covered the floor of the room. With 
the usual recklessness of the Indian character, a 
lighted candle was brought in. David Zeisberger, 
the leader of the mission band, expostulated with 
the natives on the danger they thus incurred, but 
in vain. All he could effect was, a promise that 
they would use the utmost caution, and not go to 
sleep till they had extinguished the light. Com- 
pelled to be content with this assurance, and 



ROBERT MOFFAT. 83 

overpowered with fatigue, they at length fell 
asleep. In the morning, Zeisberger called one 
of the brethren out of the house into the wood, 
took a piece of candle from his pocket, and said, 
" My brother, had we not had the eye of Him 
who never slumbereth nor sleepeth upon us, we 
should all this night have been precipitated into 
eternity; and no one would have remained to tell 
how it happened. I slept soundly, being ex- 
tremely fatigued, and was in my first sleep, when 
I felt as if some one aroused me. I sat up, and 
saw the wick of the candle hanging down on one 
side in a flame, and on the very point of falling 
into the straw. Another moment, and it would 
have been too late. I could not sleep again, but 
have lain awake, silently thanking God for the 
extraordinary preservation we have experienced/' 

South Africa has subsequently been the scene 
of Mr. Moffat's well-known missionary toil. His 
volume details a career of danger and difficulty 
singularly illustrative of the care of G-od. 

" It is," says Mr. Moffat himself, " a pleasing, 
sometimes an exciting exercise, to look back on 
the rugged path which we have been called to 
tread, and to recount the dangers from which a 
gracious Providence has rescued us. Some of 
these have been so striking that, when I recall 
the circumstances, I am forcibly impressed with 
the sentiment that ' man is immortal till his work 
is done.' On one journey, when travelling alone 
in a woody and sequestered place, I left the direct 
road to avoid a ford where there were many cro- 
codiles. I had not proceeded two stone-casts, 



84 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

when it occurred to me that I should like to ex- 
amine a projecting rock which lay beyond the 
path I had left. After examining the object 
which had attracted my attention, I turned 
toward the place from whence I had come, in 
order to retrace my steps, but saw a lion, which 
had caught scent of me on that spot, looking 
about for his prey. I, of course, made for the 
old ford, when, after throwing in some large 
stones to frighten away the crocodiles, I hastened 
to the other side, glad enough to get the watery 
monsters between the lion and myself. The lions, 
in this part of the country, having once gorged 
on human flesh, do not spend time in looking at 
the human eye, which some are said to do, but 
seek the easiest and most expeditious way of 
making a meal of a man. 

" In one of my early journeys, I had an escape 
no less providential. I had left the wagons, and 
wandered to a distance among the coppice and 
grassy openings in quest of game. I had a small 
double-barrelled gun on my shoulder, which was 
loaded with a ball and small shot. An antelope 
passed, at which I fired, and slowly followed the 
course it took. After advancing a short distance, 
I saw a tiger-cat staring at me between the forked 
branches of a tree, behind which his long spotted 
body was concealed, twisting and turning his tail 
like a cat just going to spring. This I knew was 
a critical moment, not having a charge of ball in 
my gun. I moved about as if in search of some- 
thing in the grass, taking care to retreat at the 
same time. After getting, as I thought, a suit- 



ROBERT MOFFAT. 80 

able distance to turn my back, I moved some- 
what more quickly ; but in my anxiety to escape 
what was behind, I did not see what was before, 
until startled by treading on a large cobra da ca- 
pello serpent, asleep in the grass. It instantly 
twirled its body round 1 my leg, on which I had 
nothing but a thin pair of trowsers, when I leaped 
from the spot, dragging the venomous and en- 
raged reptile with me ; and while in the act of 
throwing itself into a position to bite, without 
turning round, I threw my piece over my shoul- 
der and shot it. Taking it by the tail, I brought 
it to my people at the wagons, who, on examin- 
ing the bags of poison, asserted, that had the 
creature bitten me, I could never have reached 
the wagons. The serpent was six feet long."* 

* This adventure of Mr. Moffat was paralleled, how- 
ever, by that which occurred to a devoted missionary 
servant of God, Lewis Christopher Deture, at Panama- 
ribo, in South America. One evening, having been at- 
tacked by a paroxysm of fever, he resolved to go into 
his hut and lie down in a hammock. No sooner, how- 
ever, had he entered the door, than he found himself 
in the embrace of a serpent, probably of the boa 
species, which had suddenly fallen down upon him 
from the roof. Pursuing him closely, the creature 
twined itself several times about his neck and head as 
tightly as possible. Expecting to be strangled or 
stung to death, and being afraid lest his brethren 
should suspect the Indians had murdered him, he 
reached out his arm for a piece of chalk, and with 
singular presence of mind wrote on the table, "A ser- 
pent has killed me. Suddenly the promise of the Re- 
deemer, made to the apostles, and perhaps designed ex- 
clusively for them, darted into his mind, ''They shall 



86 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

" On one occasion," Mr. Moffat writes, " I was 
remarkably preserved when all expected that my 
race was run. We had reached the river early in 
the afternoon, after a dreadfully scorching ride 
across a plain. Three of my companions, who 
were in advance, rode forward to a Bushman vil- 
lage, on an ascent some hundred yards from the 
river. I went, because my horse would go to a 
little pool, on a dry branch from which the flood 
or torrent had receded to a larger course. Dis- 
mounting, I pushed through a narrow opening in 
the bushes, and, lying down, took a hearty 
draught. Immediately on raising myself, I felt 
an unusual taste in my mouth, and looking at- 
tentively at the water and temporary fence around 
it, it flashed across my mind that the water was 
poisoned for the purpose of killing game. 

"At that moment a Bushman from the village 
came running, breathless and apparently terrified, 
took me by the hand as if to prevent my going 
to the water, talking with great excitement, 
though neither I nor my companions could un- 
derstand him; but when I made signs that I had 
drunk, he was speechless for a minute or two, 
and then ran off to the village. I followed, and 
on again dismounting, as I was begin ning to 



take up serpents," — and they "shall not hurt them." 
He, however, applied it to himself, and nerved with 
fresh vigor by the power of faith, he seized the crea- 
ture with immense force, tore it loose from his body, 
flung it out of his hut, and thus escaped from all 
further injury. 



MR. GOB AT. 87 

think, for the last time, the poor Bushinen and 
women began to look on me with eyes that be- 
spoke heartfelt compassion. I began to feel a 
violent turmoil within, and a fulness of the sys- 
tem as if the arteries would break, while the 
pulsation was exceedingly quick, accompanied 
with a giddiness in the head. AVe made the na- 
tives understand that we wanted the fruit of the 
solanum, which acts as an emetic : they ran in 
all directions, but sought in vain. By this time 
I had got into a profuse perspiration, and drank 
largely of pure water. The strange and painful 
sensations I had experienced wore away, though 
they were not entirely removed for several days." 

Instances of escape from peril, of an equally 
remarkable character, could easily be multiplied, 
did space permit ; for missionary literature 
abounds with them. The narration of the fol- 
lowing incident, however, must conclude this 
department of our subject. 

Mr. Grobat, the present bishop of Jerusalem, 
when engaged as a missionary in Abyssinia, re- 
tired, an one occasion, in a season of deep spirit- 
ual depression and gloom, into a cavern, and there 
poured out his heart in earnest supplication, be- 
seeching that God would not desert him, but en- 
courage him in his trials. He remained in the 
cavern for some time. When he rose from his 
knees, his eyes had become accustomed to the 
darkness, and he saw that he had been there with 
a hyaena and her cubs, which yet had marvel- 
lously not been permitted to attack him. At the 
very time when he deemed himself forgotten, he 



55 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

received this striking manifestation that the 
God of providence was nigh to shield and pro- 
tect hirn. 

We are not compelled, however, to revert to 
periods of persecution, or to sweep the missionary 
field, for evidences of God's parental care of his 
people. This truth bursts in upon our view at 
every turn, when we peruse the biographies of 
those who have devoted themselves to his ser- 
vice, and we are constantly reminded of the say- 
ing, that man is immortal till his work is done. 
We have abundant and very striking illustrations 
of this in the laborious and philanthropic career 
of John Howard. His whole mature life was 
one course of perils sought out and encountered 
in the cause of religion and humanity. On more 
than one occasion he had himself shut up in the 
plague-ship, where the pestilence was raging with 
frightful virulence : he entered dungeons reek- 
ing with miasma, where the jail fever was sweep- 
ing off its hundreds : he put himself into the 
hands of the most desperate ruffians, with no de- 
fence save "the shield of faith." He shrank 
from no danger, however fearful, yet he came out 
from all unhurt. He seemed to bear a charmed 
life, proof alike against the pestilence that walketh 
in darkness, and the arrow that flieth by day. 
A thousand fell at his side, and ten thousand at 
his right hand, but it came not nigh him. He 
breathed the poisoned air with impunity, and 
escaped unaffected from the deadliest contagion, 
for God was with him. 

Nor were his perils and escapes all of this 



RICHARD BAXTER. 89 

kind. It is recorded that once, during a tem- 
porary visit to his home, he took occasion to 
reprove a man in his neighborhood for his un- 
godly and profligate life, and warned him of the 
inevitable consequences of the course he was 
pursuing. The reproof rankled in the man's 
heart, and he determined on vengeance. There 
seemed no difficulty in the way of his gratifying 
his malignant designs. It was Mr. Howard's in- 
variable custom every Sunday morning to walk 
alone, across the fields, to a chapel at the dis- 
tance of two or three miles from his house ; and 
the man resolved to secrete himself in the path, 
and spring out upon his unsuspecting reprover. 
But on the very morning fixed upon to accomplish 
his purpose, Mr. Howard departed from his cus- 
tom, and rode to chapel, thus escaping the ambush 
laid for him. Deliverances from the designs of 
assassination, very similar in character, are re- 
corded in the lives of the great Augustin and of 
Yavasor Powell, one of the most eminent divines 
of the seventeenth century. 

Powell's illustrious contemporary and friend, 
the learned and devout Baxter, was on several 
occasions threatened with similar perils, but he 
escaped them all. Once, when administering the 
Lord's Supper at Acton, he was fired at through 
a window just behind him by a ruffian outside, 
but the ball whizzed close past him, and he escaped 
unhurt. 

Baxter records another escape, as having pro- 
duced a great effect upon his mind. Sitting one 
day in his library, several of the highest shelves, 



90 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

just over his head, laden with ponderous folios, 
suddenly broke down, and the huge tomes fell 
all round him, without however inflicting any 
injury beyond a slight bruise on the arm : 
" Whereas the place, the weight, and the great- 
ness of the books was such, that it is a wonder 
that they had not beaten out my brains," is his 
own account of the matter. To appreciate the 
danger and escape of the great theologian, we 
must remember that the folios in his day were 
bound in literal boards, their corners armed with 
brass, their backs clamped with iron, so that a 
blow on the head by one falling from a height 
would be certain death. A yet narrower escape 
was experienced by him in the winter of 1633, 
when, during a severe frost, he was riding from 
London into Shropshire to see his dying mother. 
In a very narrow lane he met a loaded wagon, 
which he could only pass by riding on the top of 
a high bank by the road side. In spurring his 
horse up this bank the animal fell, the girths 
broke, and he was thrown immediately before 
the wheel of the wagon : at this critical juncture, 
the horses suddenly but unaccountably stopped, 
and his life was preserved. Three or four 
other escapes as wonderful, and as obviously pro- 
vidential, are recorded in the course of his event- 
ful life. 

In Cecil's life is recorded his escape from in- 
jury when a cart-wheel went over his arm. The 
cause which led to his preservation, was the fact 
of one of the causeway stones being higher than 
the others around it, and the wheel in conse- 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 91 

quence being lifted by it, passed over Mr. Cecil 
without crushing him. 

In the instances of the preserving care of God 
already adduced, that care has been exercised on 
occasions when the danger impending was be- 
held by his watchful eye alone, and they whose 
lives were threatened were unconscious of it. 
But it is in answer to fervent and believing 
prayer that we are warranted to expect deliver- 
ances. As to the mode in which prayer is an- 
swered without disturbing the natural laws of the 
world it is unnecessary to speak again, as we 
have already alluded to the subject in the intro- 
duction to this work. His command makes the 
duty clear, and his promise makes the answer 
certain : " Call upon me in the day of trouble : I 
will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me/ 7 A 
few illustrative instances will set this truth more 
clearly and forcibly before us. 

Our first illustration will be one of an answer 
vouchsafed to prayer in its lowest form, if we 
may so express it — prayer wrung by extreme 
danger from lips unaccustomed to utter it, but 
mercifully listened to by Him who waits to be 
gracious. The incident is narrated by the Rev. 
H. Cheever, of New York. A few years ago, the 
captain of a whaler cruising in the Pacific dis- 
patched two out of his three boats in pursuit of a 
whale. They were very speedily drawn by it 
out of sight of the ship. Another whale having 
been seen, the captain ordered the remaining 
boat to be lowered, and with the remainder of the 
crew sprang into it, leaving only a man and two 



92 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

boys in charge of the vessel. Having harpoon- 
ed this monster of the deep, they were carried 
by it with fearful velocity to a distance of fifteen 
miles from where their ship lay. The whale 
then, wrought into frenzy by the pain of the 
wound, and his inability to detach himself from 
the weapon, or shake off his pursuers, rushed 
upon the boat, struck it in the centre of the keel, 
dashed it into atoms, plunged into the deep again, 
and disappeared. The captain and the crew were 
now in the water, clinging to the scattered frag- 
ments of the demolished boat. They were, as 
we have mentioned, fifteen miles from the ship, 
and could not be seen from it. The other boats 
were gone they knew not whither; every chance 
or possibility of escape seemed cut off, and they 
were left to a watery grave. It was twelve at 
noon. The hours of one, two, three, four, five, 
six, passed slowly away, and still they were float- 
ing, almost exhausted, upon the heaving billows 
of the Pacific. 

" Oh ! how fervently I prayed/' said one of 
these mariners, when afterwards relating the 
scene, " that God would in some way providen- 
tially interpose and save our lives ! I thought of 
my wife, of my little children, of my prayerless life, 
of the awful account I had to render at the bar 
of God for grieving the Spirit and neglecting the 
Saviour. All the horrors of this dreadful death 
were forgotten in the thought, that in one short 
hour I was to render up an account to God for 
years of ingratitude and disobedience. " 

The sun had now disappeared behind the dis- 



FAITH AND PRATER REWARDED. 93 

tant waves, and the darkening shades of a dreary 
night were settling down over the ocean. Just 
then they descried, dim in the dusky distance, 
one of the absent boats returning to the ship. It 
was, however, far off, apparently beyond the reach 
of their loudest cries. Impelled by the energies 
of despair, they simultaneously raised a shout, 
which blended with the wash of the waves and 
the sighing of the breeze ; still, however, the boat 
continued her course. Again they raised another 
shout, and it too was unavailing. 

The shades of night were deepening, and the 
boat was rapidly passing by them : almost fren- 
zied at their terrible condition, they raised another 
cry. The sound of that distant shriek fell faintly 
upon the ears of the boatmen, and they rested on 
their oars. Another shout, which almost lacerated 
their throats as they uttered it, and the boat 
turned in pursuit. They were taken nearly life- 
less from the water, and carried to the ship. In 
this very striking narrative we cannot but observe 
that the cry was heard in heaven before it was 
heard on earth. They prayed when there was no 
helper near save Grod, and "he inclined unto 
them, and heard their cry." 

Our nest illustration will also be drawn from 
the perils of the deep, but it illustrates another 
fact besides the efficacy of prayer in gaining de- 
liverance. It shows how prayerful trust in God 
can give tranquillity and peace in the hour of 
utmost peril. The incident in question is ex- 
tracted from a little volume entitled, " G-od our 
Refuge," and is the narrative of a homeward 



94 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

voyage across the Atlantic by Leonard Strong. 
It is too long for transcription into our pages, or 
we would gladly have given it entire. The author 
being about to sail for England in the steamer 
" T /' was, in common with the other pas- 
sengers, startled to hear that the vessel in which 
they were to embark had been lying for eight days 
on a reef of rocks off Cuba, by which nearly 
twenty feet of her keel had been torn away. 
She had, however, been repaired and pronounced 
seaworthy. " There was still general consterna- 
tion among the passengers, and much question as 
to the safety of proceeding in such a crippled 
ship. For myself, I felt much perplexity as to 
my path, and whether I should construe this as 
a providential hinderance to delay my voyage, or 
simply an occasion for the exercise of faith in 
God for special preservation. Giving myself to 
prayer, I felt a calm persuasion in my mind that 
all was well, and ordered for our good and his 
glory." This was no wild presumption on the 
part of the writer, for so secure was the steamer 
now considered that a valuable freight of silver 
and pearls was placed on board of it. 

It appeared that the rent in the vessel's keel 
had been repaired by a water-tight deck being 
laid over the wounded part, and that powerful 
pumps had been fitted up and connected with the 
steam-engine, so that should any leakage occur, 
the water could be carried off as fast as it flowed 
in. With these precautions it was confidently 
asserted that the ship was fit to sail for China, 
and to encounter any weather. Nevertheless, as 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 95 

it subsequently turned out, all that could be truly- 
said for her was, that so long as the engine and 
pumps worked, she would float ; but that within 
four hours of either of them failing she would fill 
and go down. For many days, however, all went 
well. The vessel seemed to make her way so 
gallantly through the waves that fear subsided in 
the breasts of those on board, and admiration of 
her swift and majestic advance toward her " de- 
sired haven" took its place. 

On the ninth day of the voyage a brisk gale 
came on, which continued to increase. Still the 
confidence of the officers of the ship remained 
unshaken, and they expressed their readiness to 
sail for China in her if needful. As the gale 
freshened, however, she began to labor heavily, 
which caused the false keel to leak. Soon after- 
ward the leak began to increase fearfully, the 
water to rise in the hold, and the pumps almost 
entirely to cease acting. The fact was, the pipes 
had become choked, and the engines were work- 
ing very feebly. In consequence of this the 
water soon rose nearly to the orlop deck, and, as 
the ship reeled to and fro with every sea that 
struck her, roared and dashed in the hold like the 
surf on a rocky beach. Now, however, appeared 
the value of faith and prayer. Mr. Strong, find- 
ing that he could be of no use on deck, repaired 
to his cabin, and poured out his soul in supplica- 
tion to Him " who hath gathered the wind in his 
fists, and hath measured the waters in the hollow 
of his hand." He was led especially to pray on 
behalf of the many on board who were unprepared 



96 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

to die, and he besought the Lord for their sakes to 
spare the ship, that the riches of his goodness and 
forbearance and longsuffering might lead them 
to repentance. He then returned on deck, with 
a calm and untroubled spirit, firmly trusting in 
God, and freed from all anxiety as to the result. 
" My peace and joy in the Lord," he says, " were 
never disturbed a moment." 

He found the crew actively engaged in prepar- 
ing for the worst, getting the boat ready to 
launch before the ship should go down. The sea, 
however, was running so high that it was a ques- 
tion whether they could live in it. It was now 
resolved to make one more effort to discover and 
remove the cause of the pumps failing; and, as a 
last resort, a diver was sent down under the ship's 
bottom to clear the pipe of any accumulation of 
seaweed or oakum he might find there, the pas- 
sengers meanwhile working a hand-pump and 
bailing with buckets. This was continued from 
nine o'clock till one. " It was an awful season. 
When my turn was to rest I went to the ladies : 
they were exceedingly terrified ; and you might 
see those who had been so thoughtlessly gay the 
day before, in an agony of mind. I then showed 
them the value of saving faith in Jesus, and 
besought them now to look with confidence to 
his blood, and cast themselves on the grace of 
God. 

" The preparations for embarking in the boats 
had greatly alarmed the ladies, and it was a piti- 
ful sight to behold their agony at the prospect 
before them; for, perhaps, ere sunset, the mighty 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 9/ 

vessel^ with all the souls on board, might sink be- 
neath the waters, and the wind might be sweep- 
ing over the waves that covered us, and not a 
token be left to tell our mourning friends the sad 
tale of our foundering at sea; and, then, the 
souls of those who had not been washed in the 
blood of Jesus — where would they be ? All this, 
ay, more than this, was pondered in the heart of 
him whose name is e Love,' 

" The time was now come for Him who had 
heard my cry to put forth his hand. The men 
had been fruitlessly diving for three hours and 
a half, and the water fearfully increasing, not- 
withstanding all our efforts ; but now they suc- 
ceeded in clearing the pipe, the water began to 
decrease, and in a short time we were able to dis- 
continue pumping or bailing, the engine taking 
off all the water. By four o'clock our fears were 
quieted, and we were all able to assemble at 
dinner. Then were the circumstances of Paul 
and the crew of the ship of Alexandria brought 
forcibly before my mind ; so confident did I feel 
that Grod had answered prayer, in helping us to 
clear the engine-pipes, and had given calmness 
and wisdom to the engineer to act as he had done 
for our safety. All thought of danger was now 
banished from my mind, and although the vessel 
was rolling deeply before a heavy sea, yet she 
was running swiftly to a port of safety." 

Thus it proved, and they succeeded in reaching 
Fayal, where the steamer was thoroughly exam- 
ined and repaired. Many of the passengers, 
however, refused to proceed further in her ; but 
9 



98 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

so strongly impressed was the captain by Mr. 
Strong's calm trust in Providence in the hour of 
peril, that he earnestly besought him to remain 
in the ship till her arrival in England, feeling 
assured that, if he did so ; it would safely arrive at 
its place of destination. Mr. Strong remained 
on board, and the steamer reached England with- 
out further disaster. 

In the memoirs of the Rev. Legh Richmond, 
the pious author of the Dairyman's Daughter, 
a striking proof is recorded, that "the fervent 
effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth 
much," and that it can draw down protection for 
the object of its solicitude at a time when he is 
far removed from all personal communication 
with those who are most deeply interested in his 
welfare. 

Nugent Richmond, the son of the clergyman 
whom we have just named, was the child of many 
prayers, and received a careful and a pious edu- 
cation. When a young man, however, he occa- 
sioned his father much anxiety by a course of 
irregularity, and was, after ineffectual attempts 
to restrain him, sent to the sea as his profession. 
His father followed him with much earnest prayer, 
and besought God earnestly for his preservation 
and reformation. In the midst of his parental 
anxieties, however, intelligence of an appalling 
character reached him : the "Arniston," the ship 
in which his son had sailed, had been wrecked 
near Cape Lagullas, with the loss of her whole 
crew, consisting of three hundred and fifty per- 
sons. The news plunged Mr. Richmond and his 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 99 

family into deep affliction, and the father sorrowed 
for his child, with a grief unmitigated by the 
communication of any cheeririg circumstance as 
to the state of his mind ; or his fitness for so 
sudden a change. 

But mark the power of prayer. In the follow- 
ing winter, while he was still wearing mourning 
apparel for his son, a letter was delivered to Mr. 
Kichmond, in the handwriting of the very son 
whom he sorrowed over as being dead, explaining 
that circumstances had prevented him from set- 
ting sail in the "Arniston" on her return voyage. 
Thus miraculously was he alone, of all that large 
crew, preserved. The life thus saved was de- 
voted to God; and Nugent Richmond, after 
living for some years a monument of the preserv- 
ing goodness of Providence, died, there is reason 
to believe, a holy and a happy believer in the 
Saviour. 

The efficacy of prayer in warding off perils has 
been experienced by communities as well as by 
individuals. To trace out the various instances 
in which the fervent prayers of Christians could 
be shown to have exerted a mighty influence 
upon the destinies of nations, would require 
more space than our pages will permit ; nor is it 
needful that we should do this, since there are 
so many volumes extant devoted to the special 
purpose of tracing the hand of Grod in history. 
He must surely be grossly ignorant, or wilfully 
blind, who does not see the providential answers 
to prayer in such events as the destruction of 
the Spanish Armada, or the scattering of the 



100 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

fleet drawn up to oppose the landing of Wil- 
liam III. 

The following somewhat similar incident is 
recorded by the sober-minded and judicious Pre- 
sident Dwight, in a sermon on the efficacy of 
prayer : "lam bound," he says, " as an inhabit- 
ant of New England, solemnly to declare, that 
were there no other instances to be found in any 
other country, the blessings communicated to this 
would furnish ample satisfaction to every sober, 
much more to every religious mind. Among 
these the destruction of the French armament 
under the Due D'Anville, in the year 1746, ought 
to be remembered with gratitude and admiration 
by every inhabitant of this country. This fleet 
consisted of forty ships of war, was destined for 
the destruction of New England, was of sufficient 
force to render that destruction in the ordinary 
progress of things certain, sailed from Chebucto 
in Nova Scotia for this purpose, and was entirely 
destroyed by a terrible tempest on the night fol- 
lowing a general fast throughout New England. 
Impious men, who ' regard not the works of the 
Lord, nor the operation of his hands/ may refuse 
to give God the glory of this most merciful inter- 
position. But our ancestors had, and it is to be 
hoped their descendants ever will have, both 
piety and good sense sufficient to ascribe to Jeho- 
vah ' the greatness, and the power, and the glory, 
and the victory;' and to ' bless the Lord their 
God for ever and ever.' f> 

But deliverances to a community, or to an indi- 
vidual exposed to peril of death, do not compose 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 101 

the limits of Grod's providential interference. In 
every time of trial, small or great, the Christian 
is privileged to make known his wants unto Grod. 
Striking evidence of the truth of this promise is 
given in the memoirs of Mr. Meikle, a pious sur- 
geon at Carnwarth, in Scotland. In the middle 
of the last century, Mr. Meikle, who was at that 
time an assistant surgeon in the navy, accompa- 
nied the British fleet to Leghorn. While it lay 
there he paid a visit to the leaning tower of Pisa ; 
but, on his return, discovered with consternation 
that during his absence the wind had changed 
and the fleet had sailed, the latter being already 
several leagues on its voyage. He was now in a 
strange place, ignorant of the language, with little 
money, without one personal acquaintance, and 
in danger, from his absence, of losing his appoint- 
ment, as well as injuring his professional pros- 
pects. In his distress he applied to the English 
consul, but every expedient suggested by him 
failed. Mr. Meikle, however, was a man of deep 
and unfeigned piety, and had known from pre- 
vious experience the value and power of prayer. 
After spending, therefore, the whole of Friday 
and Saturday in fruitless contrivances to extri- 
cate himself from the embarrassments of his situ- 
ation, he walked to a field in the neighborhood 
of Leghorn, and occupied the Sabbath in devo- 
tional exercises, pouring out his complaint before 
God. With a mind much calmed by this em- 
ployment he returned home, and had scarcely 
reached it before the surprising intelligence came 
that the English fleet had arrived in the roach. 
9* 



102 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

having been driven bach by a change of icind. 
With joy lie rejoined his vessel, blessing God for 
a deliverance so manifestly providential, and — 
fanatical as the expression may appear to the 
worldling — so evidently an answer to prayer. 
His rescue appears even to have struck the 
thoughtless sailors in his ship with surprise j for, 
says his biographer, " they hailed him as he 
approached the vessel in their rough and irreli- 
gious manner — ' Come along, you praying f 

adding, that the winds would not permit them to 
leave Leghorn without him/' 

In the deliverances in answer to prayer which 
have already been recorded, the exigency, how- 
ever formidable, has yet afforded opportunity for 
deliberation, and allowed of calm, continuous 
waiting upon God. But in other cases the peril 
has been so sudden and startling as to leave no 
time for reflection as to the course best to be pur- 
sued, and only admitted of a few brief and hasty 
ejaculations to God for help in the emergency. 
As Nehemiah, when standing before the monarch 
of Babylon, breathed a prayer which was heard 
in heaven, and answered on the instant, so for 
our encouragement there are on record many in- 
stances which have occurred in our own times, 
proving that God's ear is not grown heavy that 
he cannot hear, neither is his arm shortened that 
he cannot save. The history of Mr. Cecil, whose 
escapes in childhood have already been referred 
to, affords a case in point. 

"About the year 1778," says his biographer, 
" Mr. Cecil was appointed to two small livings at 



RICHARD CECIL. 103 

Lewes, in Sussex. At this time a very singular 
providence occurred to him on his way to London 
to serve these churches. He was detained in 
town till noon, in consequence of which he did 
not arrive on East Grinstead common till after it 
was dark. On this common he met a man 
on horseback, who appeared to be intoxicated, 
and ready to fall from his horse. Mr. C., with 
his usual benevolence, rode up to him in order to 
prevent his falling, when the man immediately 
seized the reins of his horse. Mr. C. perceiving 
that he was in bad hands, endeavored to break 
away, but the man threatened to knock him down 
if he repeated the attempt. Three other men imme- 
diately rode up, placing Mr. C. in the midst of them. 
On perceiving his danger, it struck him, " Here 
is an occasion of faith;" and that direction oc- 
curred to him, " Call upon me in the day of 
trouble : I will deliver thee." He secretly lifted 
up his heart to God, imploring that deliverance 
which he alone could give. One of the men, 
who seemed to be captain of the gang, asked him 
who he was, and whither he was going. Mr. C. 
told them very frankly his name and profession. 
The leader said, "Sir, I know you, and have 
heard you preach at Lewes : let the gentleman's 
horse go : we wish you good night." Mr. Cecil 
had about him £16 of Queen Anne's bounty be- 
longing to his churches, which he had been to 
London to receive, and the loss of which would 
have been to him at that time a large sum ; yet 
his person and property were alike untouched. 
An incident in the early life of Thomas Bur- 



104 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

chell, a devoted and successful missionary to the 
West Indies, is even more striking than that just 
mentioned. 

Mr. Burchell was in early life a cloth manu- 
facturer in the west of England. His first piece 
of cloth he sold to a person in Bristol, who, a few 
days afterwards, was reported to be on the point 
of insolvency. With the energy which charac- 
terized him throughout his whole life, he deter- 
mined, if possible, to regain legal possession of 
his property, of which it appeared he was about 
to be defrauded. It occurred to him, that by 
walking all night he should be in Bristol some 
hours earlier than if he waited for the coach, 
which did not start till morning. He therefore 
set out at once, and had walked nearly twenty 
miles by daybreak. He now approached the 
Severn, at a point where he expected to find some 
one who would ferry him over. As he reached 
it, he saw a boat push off hastily from the land. 
He hailed the crew, but they only plied their 
oars more vigorously, and were soon out of hear- 
ing. 

Looking round he saw another boat just putting 
out, and feeling that if he did not succeed in 
gaining a passage in her, he should fail of attain- 
ing the object for which he had made such efforts, 
he used all the means in his power to attract the 
attention of the boatmen and induce them to re- 
turn. It soon became evident that they had 
noticed him, and seemed debating whether they 
should return or not. He at length had the 
satisfaction of seeing them pull for the shore. As 



THOMAS BURCHELL. 105 

they approached, it struck him that he had never 
seen five such desperate-looking ruffians. After 
some objection on their part, they told him to 
get in. He had not long done so before he found 
that he was in most undesirable company. They 
began whispering together, and the few words he 
caught showed him that he was in extreme peril. 
He then perceived that they were steering in the 
opposite direction to that in which he wished to go. 
He spoke to them of this, when one of the num- 
ber, an Irishman, openly and resolutely avowed 
their design of murdering him. They all then 
set up a loud shout in confirmation of their pur- 
pose, and as though to urge one another on to the 
deed. 

From their horrid oaths and avowed intentions 
he now found that they took him for a spy in the 
preventive service, and he perceived some kegs 
of spirits covered with straw in the bottom of the 
boat. It was in vain he assured them that they 
were mistaken in their suspicions : they only re- 
newed their imprecations and threats of imme- 
diate and signal vengeance. Finding that they 
scoffed at his protestations, he ceased and began 
to speak with them of God, a judgment, and eter- 
nity. After speaking in this strain for some little 
while, he observed the countenance of one of them 
to relax, and a tremor to pass over the frame of 
another. Still they did not alter the boat's 
course, but continued steadily rowing in the wrong 
direction. 

He then addressed each one solemnly and se- 
parately, and this with so much evident sincerity 



106 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

and deep feeling, that the captain of the crew 
cried out, " I say, I can't stand this. I don't 
believe he's the man we took him for. We must 
let him go. Where do you want to be put out, 
sir ?" The traveller replied that he wished to be 
taken up the Avon as far as Bristol. The man 
said that they could not go so far as that, as they 
dared not pass Pill; but that they would take 
him as far as possible, and put him in a way to 
continue his journey by the shortest route. He 
thanked them, and begged them to make the ut- 
most speed, for his business was urgent. Finding 
them so subdued, he spoke to them of their sin- 
ful lives, and pointed them to Christ as their 
Saviour. They all appeared impressed by his 
statements and conduct, and not only refused to 
receive what he had stipulated to pay as fare, but 
offered to forward a keg of spirits to any place he 
would mention — an offer which was of course de- 
clined. On landing, one of the men accompanied 
him to a farm-house, and induced the occupant to 
drive him to Bristol. He, by these means, suc- 
ceeded in reaching his journey's end at an early 
hour, and in regaining possession of the greater 
part of his property. 

Even had the results of this perilous boat 
voyage stopped here, it would have afforded a 
striking instance of the blessings which attend 
Christian fidelity and boldness, springing from a 
sense of G-od's presence and access to him in 
prayer. But more remains to be told. Many 
years afterwards, on Mr. BurchelFs return from 
Jamaica, he was at a small village in the neigh- 



TYERMAN AND BENNETT. 107 

borhood of Cheddar Cliffs, when a man accosted 
him, offered his hand, and appeared surprised 
that he was not recognized. It proved to be the 
smuggler who had guided Mr. Burchell to the 
farmhouse. After some conversation, he said, 
"Ah ! sir, after your talk, we none of us could 
follow that trade again. I have since learned to 
be a carpenter, and am doing very well in this 
village j and attend a chapel three or four miles 
off. And our poor captain never forgot to pray 
for you till his dying day. He was quite an al- 
tered man, took his widowed mother to live with 
him, and became a good husband, a good father, 
and a good neighbor. Before, every one was 
afraid of him, he was such a desperate fellow : 
afterwards, he was as tame as a lamb. He opened 
a little shop for the maintenance of his family ; 
and what was better still, held prayer meetings 
in his house. The other three men are now in a 
merchant vessel, and are very steady and well- 
behaved. " 

Interesting, and even romantic, as were these 
adventures of Mr. Burchell and Mr. Cecil, they 
are more than paralleled by an event which oc- 
curred during the missionary voyage of Messrs. 
Tyerman and Bennett, to which reference was 
made in the previous chapter. They had arrived 
after many perils at New Zealand, an island 
which had not then come under the civilizing 
power of the gospel. A few missionaries, how- 
ever, were sowing the precious seed of which the 
present generation are reaping the fruits. The 
natives were almost to a man cannibals, and were 



108 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

the dread of sailors navigating those seas, from 
their deeds of ferocious cruelty against the crews 
who were so unhappy as to fall into their hands. 
It was among these fierce savages that the inci- 
dent happened, of which the following is an 
abridged account : — 

" This morning," says Mr. Bennett, " our little 
vessel was surrounded by canoes containing seve- 
ral hundred natives. The commerce went on 
pretty well for some time, till they began to ex- 
ercise their pilfering propensities, and speedily, 
without our perceiving the immediate reason, the 
whole scene was changed. The women and 
children in the course of a few seconds had all 
disappeared, leaping overboard into the canoes, 
and taking with them the mantles of the warriors. 
The latter thus stripped for action remained on 
deck, of which they took complete possession, 
and forthwith made us their prisoners." Tre- 
mendous were their howlings and screechings, 
whilst they stamped and brandished their wea- 
pons. One chief with his slaves surrounded the 
captain on the larboard quarter. Mr. Tyerman 
under guard of another band stood on the star- 
board, and Mr. Bennett was beside him. A chief 
now addressed the latter gentleman with a series 
of wild, furious questions, to which Mr. B. con- 
trived to return a soothing answer. At that mo- 
ment a slave stepped behind Mr. Bennett and 
pinioned both his arms : he, however, made no 
attempt to resist or elude the attack of the gi- 
gantic savage, knowing that to do so would only 
accelerate the threatened destruction. Another 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 109 

slave then raised a large axe over the head of the 
prisoner, looking with demon-like eagerness and 
impatience to his master for the signal to strike. 
While Mr. Bennett stood thus pinioned and in 
jeopardy, the axe gleaming over his head and 
catching his eye at every turn, he saw a few yards 
before him Mr. Tyerman in custody of other 
slaves. The savages were from time to time feel- 
ing his limbs, in eager anticipation of the canni- 
bal feast which awaited them. The prisoner, like 
his companion, maintained the utmost calmness 
of deportment, though the paleness of his coun- 
tenance plainly showed that he was not ignorant 
of the meaning of these familiarities. 

This scene of terror and confusion — during 
which the cannibals never ceased to rage and 
threaten destruction, which an invisible and al- 
mighty Hand stayed them from executing — lasted 
for about two hours. "I recommended my 
spirit," says Mr. Bennett, "to the mercy of Grod, 
in whose presence I doubted not I should very 
soon appear." But the prayers breathed in that 
season of peril and terror had entered the ears 
of the Lord God Almighty. He had restrained 
the rage of the savages during the long period 
that they held possession of the ship, and now 
he sent deliverance as unexpected as the danger 
had been sudden. Several voices cried out from 
different parts of the vessel, U A boat! a boat !" 
Happily, it was a boat returning from the settle- 
ment in Wangaroa Bay. In it were Mr. White, 
a Wesleyan missionary, and the principal chief 
of that part of the island. The natives imme- 
10 



110 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

diately desisted from violence, and the prisoners 
were released from their terrible position. How 
fervently they adored God, whose arm had been 
so marvellously stretched for their deliverance, 
and who had so signally heard and answered 
their prayers, may be more easily conceived than 
described. 

When assailed by sudden and startling dangers 
like those just recorded, there is no natural 
quality more valuable than presence of mind, 
meaning by that term the habit of looking 
calmly at the peril to which we are exposed, 
and instead of being paralyzed by excitement, 
coolly surveying all the attendant circumstances, 
so as to avail ourselves of any mode of escape 
which may offer. " The value of presence of 
mind on occasions of peril involving many lives/' 
says an essayist on this subject, " has rarely been 
more strikingly exemplified than in the circum- 
stances attending the burning of the Kent East 
Indiaman by fire, when, though the ship was 
crowded by troops with their families, and though 
it was known that there was a large quantity of 
powder in the magazine, yet not a cry of alarm 
was heard even from the women and children : 
the consequence of which was, that the officers 
and crew were able to do all that was needful, 
and to transmit the whole of her living freight 
to a vessel which most providentially came in 
sight at the time. In striking contrast was the 
scene on board the Halsewell, where the daugh- 
ters of the captain, losing all self-control, threw 
themselves upon their father with such frantic 



REFLECTIONS. Ill 

cries as entirely to unman him, and deprive him 
of that calmness and intrepidity, on the mainte- 
nance of which all depended/' It is recorded 
of the late Duke of Wellington, that no feature 
of his character was more remarkable than his 
coolness in the hour of danger. Instead of be- 
coming paralyzed or perturbed by sudden and 
perilous conjunctures, he seemed to rise up to 
each emergency, so that the mote imminent the 
danger, the quicker were his perceptions, the 
cooler his judgment, and the firmer his resolve. 
Much of this invaluable capacity is, of course, a 
natural gift, but it is still very susceptible of de- 
velopment and culture. Where young persons are 
accustomed to make a clamor about trifles, to 
give way to the first impulses of terror, or to 
affect alarm at frivolous causes, this quality can 
scarcely be expected to survive. But let the 
young be taught to cultivate a calm, tranquil 
spirit, and to maintain a firm, fearless deport- 
ment under such circumstances, and they will be 
prepared to meet, and, as far as human agency 
can go, to escape from the real and important 
perils which may threaten their riper years. We 
need hardly remark, how preeminently true re- 
ligious principle is adapted to implant and foster 
this habit of mind, giving, as it does, faith in a 
presiding Providence, stripping death of its ter- 
rors, and accustoming the individual to con- 
template with serenity an opening eternity. 
Others may rush upon death with a callous in- 
sensibility arising from indifference to the fu- 
ture life, but the Christian, who by a living 



112 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

faith is Victor over death, is alone able to en. 
counter the king of terrors with a calin, rational 
confidence. 

We subjoin a few instances of presence of mind 
exhibited by persons of both these classes. 

No man, perhaps, was ever naturally gifted in 
greater perfection with the quality now under 
consideration than Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 
hour of danger his coolness was so remarkable, 
that " calm as on the morning of a great battle," 
was the phrase employed by those who knew him 
best, when they wished to describe his appear- 
ance on any occasion in civil life upon which he 
had manifested peculiar self-possession. In one 
period of his eventful career, Napoleon was espe- 
cially indebted to this valuable quality for his 
preservation. During his residence in Egypt, he 
had had occasion, with some attendants, to cross 
some sands at low tide : night set in while they were 
thus engaged : the tide set in ; and having lost 
their way, the party came to a full pause. Not 
knowing on which side the water was shallow or 
on which it was deep, they could not tell whether 
the next step would take them nearer to or fur- 
ther from the shore. At this juncture, Napoleon 
relieved the whole party by one of those happy 
strokes of genius, which, however, but for pre- 
sence of mind would never have occurred to him. 
Ordering his attendants to form a circle around 
him, he then instructed each of them to gallop 
forward, pausing when their horses began to swim. 
In this manner some of the party speedily found 
out where the water, in the direction of the shore, 



SIR JOHN PURCELL. 113 

began to grow shallow, and all escaped in safety. 
" Had I perished here, like Pharaoh/' said Na- 
poleon, with the hardened sneer of infidelity, 
' i what a famous text it would have proved to half 
the divines of Europe/' 

The value of presence of mind, united with 
unflinching nerve and courage, was also power- 
fully displayed in private life, by Sir John Pur- 
cell, at a time when his house was attacked by 
fourteen assassins. The subjoined narrative* is 
drawn from Sir John's own statement, as given 
in a court of justice. 

Sir John Purcell, at the time the adventure 
occurred, was residing at Highfort, in Ireland, 
when, on the 11th of March, 1812, after he had 
retired to rest, he heard some noise outside the 
window of his parlor. He slept on the ground 
floor, in a room immediately adjoining the parlor. 
There was a door from one room into the other, 
but this having been found inconvenient, and 
there being another passage from the bed-room 
more commodious, it was nailed up, and some of 
the furniture of the parlor placed against it 
Shortly after Sir John heard the noise in the front 
of his house, the windows of his parlor were 
dashed in, and the noise occasioned by the feet 
of the robbers in leaping from the windows down 
into the parlor, appeared to indicate a gang not 
less than fourteen in number. He immediately 
got out of bed, and the first determination he 

* See Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. vi., first 
series. 

10* 



114 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

took being to make resistance, it was with no 
small mortification that he reflected upon the un- 
armed condition in which he was placed, being 
destitute of a single weapon of the ordinary sort, 
In this state he spent little time in deliberation, 
as it almost immediately occurred to him, that 
having supped in the bedchamber on that night, 
a knife had been left there, and he instantly pro- 
ceeded to grope in the dark for the weapon, which 
he found before the door leading from the parlor 
into the bedchamber had been broken open. 
While he stood in calm but resolute expectation 
that the progress of the robbers would soon lead 
them to the bedchamber, he heard the furniture 
which had been placed against the nailed-up door 
expeditiously displaced, and immediately after- 
wards the door was burst open. The moon shone 
with great brightness, and when the door was 
thrown open, the light streaming in through 
three large windows in the parlor afforded Sir 
John a view which might have made a less in- 
trepid spirit, or one possessing less presence of 
mind, not a little apprehensive. His bedroom 
was darkened to excess in consequence of the 
shutters of the windows, as well as the curtains 
being closed ; and thus, while he stood enveloped 
in darkness, he saw standing before him, by the 
brightness of the moonlight, a body of men well 
armed; and of those who were in the van of 
the gang, he observed that the faces of a few 
were blackened. Armed only with the table- 
knife, and with no human aid but a dauntless 
heart, he took his station by the side of the door, 



SIR JOHN PURCELL. 115 

and in a moment after one of the ruffians entered 
from the parlor into the dark room. Instantly 
npon advancing, Sir John struck him with his 
weapon. Upon receiving this thrust the marauder 
retired into the back parlor, crying out with blas- 
phemous expressions that he was killed. Shortly 
after another advanced, who was received in a 
similar manner, and he also staggered back into 
the parlor, crying out that he was wounded. A 
voice from the outside now gave orders to fire into 
the dark room, upon which a man stepped for- 
ward, having a short gun in his hand. As he 
stood in the act to fire, Sir John had the amazing 
coolness and presence of mind to look at his in- 
tended murderer, and without betraying any 
audible emotion that might point out where he 
was standing, he calmly calculated his own safety 
from the shot which was preparing for him. He 
saw that the contents of the piece were likely to 
pass close to his breast without menacing him 
with at least any serious wound, and in this state 
of firm and composed expectation, he stood with- 
out flinching until the piece was fired, and its 
contents harmlessly lodged in the wall. It was 
loaded with a brace of bullets and three slugs. 
As soon as the robber had fired, Sir John made a 
pass at him with the knife and wounded him in 
the arm, which in a moment he repeated with 
similar effect : as the others had done, the man 
retired, exclaiming that he was wounded. The 
robbers immediately rushed forward from the 
parlor into the dark room, and then it was that 
Sir John's mind recognized the deepest sense of 



116 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

danger, not to be oppressed, however, by it, but 
to surmount it. He did not lose a moment after 
the ruffians had entered the room, but struck at 
one of them and wounded him, receiving however 
a blow on the head, and finding himself grappled 
with. Sir John and his adversary both fell, and 
while on the ground, Sir John thinking that his 
thrusts with the knife did not seem to produce 
the effect which they had done in the beginning 
of the conflict, examined the point of his weapon 
with his finger, and found that the blade of it 
had been bent near the point. As he lay strug- 
gling on the ground, he endeavored, but unsuc- 
cessfully, to straighten the curvature of the knife; 
but while one hand was employed in this attempt, 
he perceived that the grasp of his adversary was 
losing its constraint and pressure : the limbs of the 
robber were, in fact, by this time, unnerved in 
death. Sir John found that the man had a sword in 
his hand, and this he immediately seized and gave 
several blows with it, his knife being no longer 
serviceable. At length the robbers finding that 
so many of their party had been killed or 
wounded, employed themselves in removing the 
bodies, and Sir John took the opportunity of re- 
tiring a little apart from the house, where he 
remained for a short time. He afterwards ven- 
tured to call for assistance, and some of the ruf- 
fians were speedily traced and brought to justice. 
During the whole of the appalling scene, Sir John's 
presence of mind had never forsaken him, and to 
this quality he largely, under God, owed his pre- 
servation on that memorable night 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 117 

Admirable as was the self-possession shown 
by Sir John Purcell, no reference is made to 
religious principle as having been its source and 
spring. Scenes, too, of blood, even when it 
has been shed in self-defence, leave a painful im- 
pression on the mind. Some incidents of a more 
pleasing character come now, however, to be 
noticed. 

Rarely has there been a more striking instance 
of heroism, calmness, and presence of mind, in- 
spired and sustained by Christian faith, than in 
the conduct of a peasant's wife in the Peak of 
Derbyshire, quoted by Howitt on the authority 
of a minister of the Society of Friends, who was 
personally acquainted with the facts of the case. 
It is likewise recorded by Wilson Armistead, in a 
volume published with the sanction of the same 
body. We give it in an abridged form. 

In one of the thinly-peopled dales of the Peak 
of Derbyshire stood a lone house, far from neigh- 
bors, inhabited by a farmer and his wife. Such 
is, or at least was wont to be, the primitive sim- 
plicity of this district, that it was usual for per- 
sons to go to bed without taking any precautions 
to bolt or bar the doors, in the event of any of 
the inmates not having come home at the usual 
hour of retiring to rest. This was frequently 
the practice with the family in question, especial- 
ly on market-days, when the farmer having occa- 
sion to go to the nearest town, often did not 
return until late. One evening, when the hus- 
band was absent, the wife, being up stairs, heard 
some one open the door and enter the house. 



118 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

Supposing it to be her husband she lay awake, 
expecting him to come up stairs. As the usual 
time elapsed and he did not come, she rose and 
went clown, when, to her terror and astonishment, 
she saw a sturdy fellow searching the house for 
plunder. At the first view of him, as she after- 
wards said, she felt ready to drop; but being 
naturally courageous, and of a deeply religious 
disposition, she soon recovered sufficient self- 
possession to suppress the cry which was rising 
to her lips, to walk with apparent firmness to a 
chair which stood on one side of the fire-place, 
and seat herself in it. The marauder immediate- 
ly seated himself in another chair, which stood 
opposite, and fixed his eyes upon her with a most 
savage expression. Her courage was almost 
spent; but recollecting herself, she put up a 
prayer to the Almighty for protection, and threw 
herself upon his providence, for " vain was the 
help of man." She immediately felt her courage 
revive, and looked steadfastly at the ruffian, who 
now drew a large claspknife from his pocket, 
opened it, and, with a murderous expression in 
his eyes, appeared ready to spring upon her. 
She, however, showed no visible emotion, but 
continued to pray earnestly, and to look on the 
man with calm seriousness. He rose, glanced 
first at her, then at the knife ; again he seemed 
to hesitate, and wiped the weapon upon his 
hand ; then once more glanced at her, she all the 
while continuing to sit calmly, calling earnestly 
upon God. Suddenly a panic appeared to seize 
him : he blenched beneath her still, fixed gaze, 



SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON. 119 

closed his knife, and went out. At a single 
spring she reached the door, shot the bolt with a 
convulsive rapidity, and fell senseless on the floor. 
When she recovered, she recognized her hus- 
band's well-known step at the door, and heard 
him calling out in surprise at finding it fastened. 
Rising, she admitted him, and in tones tremulous 
with agitation and gratitude, told him of her dan- 
ger and deliverance. 

The life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, so 
distinguished for natural courage and strong reli- 
gious faith, affords many instances of presence of 
mind in danger, fearlessness in the discharge of 
duty, and providential deliverance from imminent 
peril. The following incident is taken from a 
letter written by himself to his wife : — 

"As you must hear/' he says, " the story of 
our dog Prince, I may as well tell it you. On 
Thursday morning, when I got on my horse at 
S. Hoare's, David told me that there was some- 
thing the matter with Prince, that he had killed 
the cat, and almost killed the new dog, and had 
bit at him and Elizabeth. I ordered him to be 
tied up and taken care of, and then rode off to 
town. When I got into Hampstead, I saw 
Prince covered with mud and running furiously, 
and biting at every thing. I saw him bite at 
least a dozen dogs, two boys, and a man. 

" Of course I was exceedingly alarmed, being 
persuaded he was mad. I tried either to stop 
him or kill him, or to drive him into some out- 
house, but in vain. At last he sprang up at a 
boy, and seized him by the breast; happily I 



120 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

was near him, and knocked him off with my 
whip. He then set off towards London, and I 
rode by his side, waiting for some opportunity 
of stopping him. I continually spoke to him, 
but he paid no regard to coaxing or scolding. 
You may suppose I was seriously alarmed, dread- 
ing the immense mischief he might do, having 
seen him do so much in the few preceding 
minutes. I was terrified at the idea of his get- 
ting into Camden Town and London ; and at 
length, considering that if ever there was an occa- 
sion that justified a risk of life, this was it, I 
determined to catch him myself. Happily he 
ran up to Prior's Gate, and I threw myself from 
my horse upon him, and caught him by the neck; 
he bit at me and struggled, but without effect, 
and I succeeded in securing him. He died yes- 
terday, raving mad. 

"Was there ever a more merciful escape? 
Think of the children being gone ! I feel it more 
seriously, but I cannot write about it more fully. 
I have not been at all nervous about it, though 
certainly rather low, partly about this and partly 
about other things." 

Some time afterwards he gave the particu- 
lars more in detail than he could do in the hurried 
letter, written immediately after the event. They 
show how frightful was the peril he had encoun- 
tered : — 

" When I seized the dog, his struggles were so 
desperate that it seemed at first impossible for me 
to hold him, till I lifted him up in the air, when 
he was more easily managed, and I contrived to 



SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON. 121 

ring the bell. I was afraid that the foam, which 
was pouring from his mouth in his furious efforts 
to bite me, might get into some scratch, and do 
me injury ; so, with great difficulty, I held him 
with one hand, while I put the other into my 
pocket and forced on my glove j then I did the 
same with my other hand, and at last the gardener 
opened the door, saying, ' What do you want V 
1 I've brought you a mad dog/ replied I ; and 
telling him to get a strong chain, I walked into 
the yard, carrying the dog by the neck. I was 
determined not to kill him, as I thought if he 
should prove not to be mad, it would be such a 
satisfaction to the three persons he had bitten. I 
made the gardener (who was in a terrible fright) 
secure the collar round his neck, and fix the 
other end of the chain to a tree, and walking to 
its farthest range, with all my force, which was 
exhausted by his frantic struggles, I flung him 
away from me and sprang back. He made a 
desperate bound at me, but finding himself foiled, 
he uttered the most fearful yell I ever heard. All 
that day he did nothing but rush to and fro, 
champing the foam which gushed from his jaws; 
we threw him meat, and he snatched at it with 
fury, but instantly dropped it again. The next 
day, when I went to see him, I thought the chain 
seemed worn, so I pinned him to the ground be- 
tween the prongs of a pitchfork, and then fixed a 
much larger chain round his neck ; when I pulled 
off the fork, he sprang up and made a dash at me, 
which snapped the old chain in two. 

" What a terrible business it was ! You must 
11 



122 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

not scold me for the risk I ran : what I did, I 
did from a clear conviction that it was my duty, 
and I never can think that an over-cautions care 
of self, in circumstances where your risk may 
preserve others, is so great a virtue as you seem 
to think it." 

Heroic as Buxton's conduct was, it will pro- 
bably, in the judgment of our readers, be con- 
sidered to have been surpassed by the following 
incident, in which presence of mind, true hero- 
ism, self-devotion, resignation to the divine will, 
(answered by a signal deliverance from danger,) 
all meet in one noble cluster. The narration of 
it will appropriately close a chapter, dedicated to 
illustrations of the sustaining power of faith and 
prayer in the season of peril. 

A poor miner in Cornwall was down with 
another miner sinking a shaft. In pursuit of 
that obscure labor they were blasting the solid 
rock. They had placed in the rock a large charge 
of powder, and fixed their fusee so that it could 
not be extricated. Their proper course was to 
cut the fusee with a knife : then one should ascend 
in their bucket, the other wait till their bucket 
came down again : then get into it, ignite the 
fusees, give the signal, and so be at the top of the 
shaft before the explosion. In the present case, 
however, they negligently cut the fusee with a 
stone and a blunt iron instrument. Fire was 
struck : the fusee was hissing : they both dashed 
to the bucket and gave the signal. The man 
above attempted in vain to move the windlass. 
One could escape : both could not, and delay was 



FAITH AND PRAYER REWARDED. 123 

death to both. Our miner looked for a moment 
at his comrade, and slipping from the bucket, 
said, " Escape ! I shall be in heaven in a minute." 
The bucket sped up the shaft. The man was 
safe : eager to watch the fate of his deliverer, he 
bent to hear. Just then the explosion rumbled 
below : a splinter came up the shaft and struck 
him on the brow. They soon began to burrow 
among the fallen rock to extricate the corpse. 
At last they heard a voice. Their friend was yet 
alive ! They reached him : the pieces of rock 
had roofed him over : he was without injury or 
scratch. All he could tell was, that at the moment 
his friend was gone he sat down, lifted a piece of 
rock, and held it before his eyes. When asked 
what induced him to let the other escape, he re- 
plied, " I knew my soul was safe — I was not so 
sure about his." " I look," adds the writer who 
narrated this incident, " I look at Peter the Great, 
who, to build a city called by his own name, 
sacrificed a hundred thousand men-; and at this 
poor miner, who, to save the soul of his comrade, 
sat there to be blasted to pieces ; and I ask you 
which of the two is the hero ?"* 

Such are some of the illustrations which mani- 
fest the watchful care of God over his children, 
the tenderness with which he hears and answers 
their prayers, and the sustaining power which 
faith affords in the hour of danger. 

* From a lecture on " Heroes," by the Key. W. 
Arthur, delivered before the Young Men's Christian 
Association. Mr. Arthur states, that a friend of his 
was intimately acquainted with the individual who per' 
formed the heroic act in question. 



124 REMARKABLE ESCAPES IROM PERIL. 



CHAPTER III. 

PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES FROM DANGER BY INSTRU- 
MENTALITIES OF A REMARKABLE CHARACTER. 

The remarkable facts given in the preceding 
chapter must impress every dispassionate mind 
with the conviction that God does indeed, by his 
providence, watch over the world which he has 
created : that he is not far removed from any one 
of us, and that he is able to deliver to the utter- 
most those who put their trust in him. As we 
advance, however, in the prosecution of the sub- 
ject, our wonder is raised to a still higher point 
when we perceive the varied instrumentalities by 
which the moral Governor of the universe works 
out the counsels of his holy will ; and we are con- 
strained, in the survey, to exclaim with the apostle 
of old, " the depth of the riches both of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearch- 
able are his judgments, and his ways past finding 
out !" 

It is proposed in the present chapter to record 
some incidents by which the skeptical mode of 
accounting for deliverances from danger, by 
ascribing them to chance, will seem still more un- 
reasonable — cases in which the mode of rescue 
was such as to point decisively to the agency of a 
hidden and more than mortal power, and to imply 



PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES. 125 

a knowledge of futurity, as well as an access to, 
and control over, the thoughts and feelings of 
the mind, on the part of some invisible agent. 
The recorded and attested instances, it will be 
found, are numerous, in which thoughts have 
occurred to the waking or sleeping mind, prompt- 
ing to measures of precaution, when no danger 
was visible or previously apprehended. Yery 
frequently, too, the inferior animals will be seen 
to have acted as the instruments of deliverance, 
some influence having been exerted upon them, 
or their blind instinct having been mysteriously 
overruled and guided. In these cases it seems 
scarcely possible to avoid the acknowledgment 
of a Divine Providence anticipating and ward- 
ing off peril, whilst the person whose life was 
endangered was as yet ignorant of what was im- 
pending. 

The Bible contains many instances of the nature 
alluded to. The patriarch Abraham goes down 
into Egypt : his faith fails him, but Abimelech 
is warned in a dream against doing injury to him. 
Laban is about to proceed to severities against 
Jacob, but is prevented by a dream. Pharaoh 
is warned, through the same medium, of an ap- 
proaching famine, and the result is that Joseph 
is raised from the dungeon to power, and thou- 
sands are kept alive by the precautions adopted. 
The prophet, to escape from the rage of his royal 
persecutor, flies into the wilderness, and there 
the ravens bring him food morning and evening. 
Daniel is thrown among wild beasts, but finds 
that their fierce instincts are restrained or sus 
11* 



126 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

pended. Ahasuerus one night cannot sleep — a 
circumstance so trivial as apparently not to be 
worth noticing : he summons the scribes and 
commands them to read the chronicles of his 
reign. Mordecai is thereupon raised to honor, 
and enabled to assist in the rescue of his nation 
from an impending massacre. These instances 
belonged, it is true, to a dispensation confessedly 
miraculous ; but even in our own day events are 
found to have occurred bearing a strong parallel 
to them. Whatever theory we may form as to 
the origin of incidents of this character, whether 
we ascribe them to the operation of ordinary 
natural laws, or to the direct action of a super- 
natural Power, still the finger of God must equally 
be recognized by every candid mind as having 
overruled them to accomplish his providential 
purposes. 

The phenomenon of dreams, for example, has 
been a fertile subject for discussion. Undoubt- 
edly dreams, in the generality of instances, must 
be regarded as nothing more than new combina- 
tions of previously existing ideas — reflections of 
the past, rather than intimations of the future. 
Whatever be their origin, however, they have 
unquestionably, as will be proved by the following 
example, been the means, even in modern times, 
of conveying warnings of impending danger. 

At Newark-upon-Trent, a custom we are in- 
formed was wont to be observed, and possibly is 
still retained, of distributing penny loaves to the 
poor on the 11th of March in each year, when a 
sermon on Providence was preached by the vicar 



PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES. 127 

in the parish church. The origin of this practice 
was as follows : — During the wars between King 
Charles and his parliament, the town of Newark 
was bombarded by the troops of the latter body. 
In the course of the siege, an alderman of the 
name of Clay dreamed for several nights in suc- 
cession that his house was burned down. He at 
length resolved upon removing his family from it. 
Scarcely had he done so, when at dead of night 
it took fire, and burned with such fury that if 
his family had still inhabited it, they would almost 
inevitably have perished. In token of gratitude 
for this marvellous preservation, and that this 
signal instance of Divine guardianship might not 
pass out of remembrance, he bequeathed two 
hundred pounds, the interest of which was to be 
divided between the vicar and the poor of the par- 
ish, on each recurring anniversary of his escape. 
The late Dr. Abercromby of Edinburgh, whose 
piety, medical skill, and philosophical acumen 
secured for him a deservedly high reputation, 
details a dream which was attended with results 
no less remarkable than those just mentioned. 
"A clergyman," he says, * had come to the Scot- 
tish metropolis from a short distance in the coun- 
try, and was sleeping at an inn, when he dreamed 
that he saw a fire, and one of his children in the 
midst of it. He awoke with the impression, and 
instantly left town to return home. When he 
arrived within sight of his house, he found it on 
fire, and got there in time to assist in saving one 
of his children, who, in the alarm and confusion, 
had been left in a situation of danger." 



128 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

The following anecdote, he adds, " I am ena- 
bled to give as entirely authentic: — A lady 
dreamed that an aged female relative had been 
murdered by a black servant; and the dream 
occurred more than once. She was then so im- 
pressed by it, that she went to the house of the 
lady to whom it related, and prevailed upon a 
gentleman to watch in an adjoining room during 
the following night. About three in the morn- 
ing the gentleman, hearing footsteps on the stair, 
left his place of concealment, and met the servant 
carrying up a quantity of coals. Being ques- 
tioned as to where he was going, he replied, in a 
hurried and confused manner, that he was about 
to mend his mistress's fire, which at that hour, 
in the middle of the summer, was evidently im- 
possible; and on further investigation, a strong 
knife was found concealed beneath the coals." 

In our first chapter we have mentioned the 
remarkable manner in which, through a dream, 
Mr. Tyerman's life was preserved, and devoted 
to missionary duties. Another example of an 
equally striking character is recorded in the life 
of Mr. Kirchener, who labored as an evangelist 
in Africa. Upon one occasion he was visited at 
his station in Caffraria by a man of bad character, 
but who affected deep religious concern, and by 
that means induced Mr. Kirchener to allow him 
to remain for the night, that they mighj converse 
together in the morning. They retired to rest, 
but after sleeping some time, the missionary 
started up with a loud cry. He had been awoke 
by a frightful dream, and found his visitor stand- 



PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES. 129 

ing by his bedside with an uplifted knife in his 
hand, and on the point of murdering him. The 
man, startled by the sudden awakening of his 
intended victim, drew back and slunk away. He 
afterwards confessed that his design was to mur- 
der his unsuspecting host, and then ransack the 
premises. 

Though the incident which follows refers to a 
deliverance from a danger of a different character 
from those just referred to, yet it illustrates in a 
remarkable manner the truth now under review, 
and bears upon itself the stamp of genuineness. 

Thomas Hownham lived in a lonely house or 
hut upon Barmour Moor, about two miles from 
Doddington in Northumberland. He was a very 
poor man, and had no means to support a wife 
and two children except the scanty earnings ob- 
tained by keeping an ass to carry coals from Bar- 
mour coal-mill to Doddington and Wooler ; or by 
making brooms of heath, and selling them about 
the country. But he was one of those poor who 
are " rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which 
G-od hath promised to them that love him/' He 
was a man of prayer. "My parents" — says the 
relater of the circumstances about to be de- 
tailed* — " lived at a village about a mile and a 
half from his hut. I had frequent interviews 
with Hownham, and on one occasion he was very 
anxious to know whether my father or mother 



* They will be found quoted at length from the Cot- 
tage Magazine in the Church of England Magazine, 
vol. i. p. 268. 



130 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

had sent hira any relief on the night before. I 
answered hirn in the negative as far as I knew, at 
which he seemed to be uneasy. I then pressed 
to know what relief he had found, and how? 
Hownhani then (after requesting secrecy, unless 
I should hear of it from some other quarter) related 
the following remarkable particulars : — He had 
been disappointed of receiving some money he 
had expected for coals on the day before, and on 
returning home, to his pain and distress, found 
there was neither bread, nor meal, nor any article 
of food in the house. His wife was weeping 
sorely for the poor children, who were crying 
with hunger, and continued to do so till they fell 
asleep. He advised his wife to go to bed like- 
wise ; and she, worn out with suffering and anx- 
iety for the children, speedily fell asleep. 

" The moon shone brightly, and with a heavy 
heart he went out to a retired spot at a little 
distance, to meditate on those remarkable words 
in Hab. iii. 17, 18 : 'Although the fig-tree shall 
not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; 
the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields 
shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off 
from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the 
stalls : yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy 
in the God of my salvation.' Here he continued 
in prayer for about an hour and a half; and so 
completely was his soul tranquillized by commu- 
nion with God, that he returned into his house 
in a sweet and composed frame of mind. 

" His wife and children he found on reaching 
it were still sleeping ; but to his astonishment he 



PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES. 131 

discerned something by the light of the moon 
placed upon a stool (chairs they had none) near 
the bed, which was not there when he left. He 
examined it a little more closely, and to his utter 
surprise found it consisted of a roasted joint of 
meat and a half peck loaf. He went to the door, 
but could see no one; he called, but there was 
no answer; and after having used his eyes and 
his voice for some time in vain, he returned in, 
awoke his wife and children, asked a blessing, 
and gave them a comfortable repast/ ' 

Whence came this unexpected provision in 
such an emergency? Certainly it was sent by 
Him who heareth the young ravens when they 
cry, and who hath said that " there is no want to 
them that fear him." But through what instru- 
mentality did it arrive ? What Christian hand 
had been stretched out to relieve this poor family? 
What Christian mind could possibly be acquainted 
with their circumstances at that hour ? " Truth 
is stranger than fiction." No such heart pitied, 
no such hand relieved; and yet there was the 
supply when the exigency came. The whole 
matter was involved in mystery, and in mystery 
it remained for about twelve years after this 
period. 

At the expiration of that time, some friends 
met together one evening, when a conversation 
arose about a farmer who was lately dead, and 
who had lived at Lowick-Highsteed ; a place to 
which the cognomen of Pinch-me-near had been 
given by his neighbors, on account of its owner's 
miserly propensities. "What," it was asked, 



132 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

" had become of his property?" "Never," ob- 
served one of the number, " did he do one gen- 
erous action during his whole lifetime." " Yes," 
answered an elderly woman who was present, "I 
could relate one which he did, that is rather 
curious." She then stated, that about twelve or 
thirteen years ago she lived with him as servant, 
or housekeeper. On one Thursday morning he 
ordered her to have a whole joint of meat roasted, 
having given directions a day or two before to 
bake two large loaves of white bread. He then 
went to Woolmer market, came home in a very 
bad humor, and went to bed. In about two hours 
after he called up his man-servant, and ordered 
him to take one of the loaves and the joint of 
meat, and carry them down the moors directly to 
Thomas Hownham's, and leave them there. The 
man did so, and finding the family asleep, set 
them by the bedside and came away. 

On the next morning, her master seemed, she 
added, in great agitation of mind, and told her 
and the man-servant that he had intended to 
have invited John Mool and some neighboring 
farmers, who were always teasing him on account 
of his close and miserly habits, to have a supper 
with him the night before; that he would not 
invite them in the market-place, as he intended 
to have taken them by surprise on his way home, 
but a smart shower of rain coming on, they rode 
off, and left him before he could get an oppor- 
tunity of asking them — that soon after he had 
gone to bed he fell dreaming, and thought he 
saw Hownham's wife and children starving for 



PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES. 133 

hunger — that he awoke and put off the impres- 
sion : soon, however, he dreamed the same thing 
again, and again attempted to shake it off; but 
when the dream occurred a third time, he was 
altogether overcome with the nonsense — that he 
believed the devil was in him ; but that since he 
had been so foolish as to send the meat and bread, 
he could not now help it. But he charged the 
man and herself never to mention it, or he would 
turn them away directly. She added that since 
he was now dead, she thought she might relate 
it, as a proof that he had done one generous 
action, though he was grieved at it afterwards. 
" Surely," adds the narrator of the anecdote, 
"this was a wonderful instance of G-od's special 
interposition on behalf of his own children. The 
infidel or skeptic may sneer at the account as in- 
credible, and denounce it as a fiction got up by 
some fanatic or enthusiast, and the worldly-minded 
and formal professor of Christianity may join the 
former in his ridicule, and say this is carrying 
the doctrine of a particular providence rather too 
far; but the sincere Christian will be prompted 
by this affecting story to a higher and holier ad- 
miration of that gracious Cod and Father who 
feedeth the young ravens when they call upon 
him, and therefore can give bread to his people, 
and supply their temporal wants in a way that 
shall call forth their deepest gratitude." 

As we have already observed, we offer no re- 
marks as to the origin of dreams. We have 
simply dealt with the fact that they have evi- 
dently at times been used by God as instruments 
12 



134 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

of his providential dispensations. In the im- 
mense majority of cases, dreams are vain and 
fantastic fancies, originating in the previous ac- 
tion of the mind, or in the present condition of 
the body. They are hut 

" Children of an idle brain, 
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, 
Which is as thin of substance as the air, 
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos 
Even now the frozen bosom of the north, 
And, being angered, puffs away from thence, 
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south." 

We can hardly, therefore, think so ill of the 
intelligence of our readers, as to suppose that 
they will attach serious importance to the wild 
and fantastic wanderings of the thoughts in sleep, 
or that they will allow their dreaming fancies 
seriously to influeDce their waking conduct. Yet 
we have seen, on unquestionable evidence, that 
dreams have sometimes a premonitory and provi- 
dential character.* 

" It would be difficult perhaps to state more clearly 
the rules which prudence and piety alike dictate in this 
matter than has been done by Mr. Sheppard in his 
"Essay on Dreams." 

"One would say generally — Be very slow in permitting 
any dream to prompt or guide your conduct. And yet 
we cannot contend that this rule admits of no excep- 
tion. For a dream may be so striking and monitory, 
by its peculiar distinctness, and still more by its re- 
iteration ; and the act or precaution it prompts may be 
of so lawful and blameless a character, as to make the 
adoption of it more than justifiable. We cannot cen- 
sure the lady at Edinburgh who procured a friendly 



PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES. 135 

We now proceed to adduce a few out of the 
numerous well-attested instances in which peril 
has been warded off by some remarkable im- 
pression on the niind, giving a presentiment of 
danger. 

This subject, like the phenomenon of dreams, 
is invested, when viewed as a metaphysical ques- 
tion, with many difficulties. Nothing appears at 
first sight more irregular or less subject to law 
than the human thoughts, rising as they do ap- 
parently at random, and following often a dis- 
cursive course. Yet undoubtedly thought is 
subject to laws as perfect as those which govern 
any other portion of the Creator's kingdom. 
What we call sudden thoughts and impressions 

sentinel for her aged relative : and we commend the 
clergyman who hastened home in the night to save his 
children from flames. 

"But we should of course say most decidedly — 
Wherever the dream counsels or enjoins what is con- 
trary to the supreme rule of Scripture, or what is at 
variance with sound reason and prudence, or favors the 
dictates of passion or fancy, discard it utterly as a vain 
and dangerous illusion. Indeed, there is all reason to 
conclude, that the dreams of some ardent minds were 
first prompted and created by the ruling passion, and 
then stirred and impelled that passion itself into stren- 
uous and confident action. Such, perhaps, were the 
dreams of Hannibal, prompting him to invade Italy, 
and of Timur, urging him on in his career of devastat- 
ing war. These men, both when awake and in their 
slumbers, were under the influence of a restless ambi- 
tion : it produced their visions, and then seized on them 
to stimulate and justify its own acts. 

"Thus examples give great weight to the general 



136 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

may therefore often proceed from some mental 
associations, the links of which we do not at the 
instant perceive. But, as in the case of dreams, 
whether we give to such thoughts a natural or 
supernatural origin, they are unquestionably at 
times employed by G-od to work out a providen- 
tial design, and have been frequently in his hands 
the means of deliverance from danger. 

Among the many remarkable escapes of John 
Knox, the Scottish reformer, from death, one 
occurred in the following manner. It was his 
habit to occupy a chair at the head of the table at 
supper, whilst his family and guests sat down the 
sides. A window which opened into the street 
was just behind the accustomed seat. One night 

rule, that it is, usually, most unsafe and unwarrantable 
to act on such suggestions. When dreams are so ex- 
traordinary, and so linked with ensuing events as to 
be distinguished from the throng of those which are 
'vanities,' they are mainly to be regarded in the light 
of corroborative enforcements to the great doctrine of 
God's overruling providence and the dictates of his 
word. Like miracles and prophecies, such dreams are 
primarily meant to induce that livelier persuasion of 
the Divine government, which gives increased force to 
all the monitions of conscience and of Scripture. If 
there be a sequence of events whose undeniable ac- 
cordance with your dream compels you to assign to 
it a predictive or premonitory character, — then take, 
thoughtfully and thankfully, the privilege of this added 
confirmatory indication that a hidden but omniscient 
Power governs our faculties and the events around us ; 
suggests ideas and imagery to the mind ; foresees and 
guides in wisdom the intricate and countless diversities 
of human affairs." 



PROFESSOR BOHM. 137 

Knox refused to sit there himself, nor would he 
allow any one else to do so. For this singular 
deviation from his ordinary custom he could as- 
sign no particular reason, but so he would have 
it : the chair, which was placed there for him as 
usual was, however, allowed to remain. As they 
were at supper, a bullet came through the win- 
dow, grazed the top of the chair, and pierced the 
candlestick which stood before it. If he had 
followed his almost invariable custom, and occu- 
pied the place at which the assassin aimed, the 
ball must have passed through his head. 

Stilling relates the following very curious fact, 
as having happened to Bohm, professor of mathe- 
matics at Marburg, who being one evening in 
company, was seized with a sudden, irresistible 
persuasion that he ought to go home. As, how- 
ever, he was spending the evening very pleasantly 
with some friends, and had nothing to do at 
home, he resisted the impression ; but it returned 
with such force that at length he was obliged to 
act upon it. On reaching his house he found 
every thing as he had left it ; but he now felt a 
strong desire to remove his bed from the place 
where it ordinarily stood to the other side of the 
room. As this new impulse seemed more vain 
and absurd than the former, he resisted this also, 
but at length yielded to it likewise. Summoning 
the maid, they together removed the bed, and 
then the professor returned to join his friends 
for the remainder of the evening. The party 
broke up and Bohm retired to rest. In the 
middle of the night he was awakened by a loud 
12* 



138 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

crash : starting up in bed, he saw that a large 
beam had fallen, bringing part of the ceiling with 
it, on the exact spot where he would have been 
lying, but for the impulse of the previous evening. 

Credulous and superstitious as Stilling may 
have been, no one will question his veracity ; and 
the foregoing narrative is so circumstantially given, 
and with so much precision of detail, that we can 
hardly reject it without at the same time denying 
the truthfulness of the narrator. The improba- 
bility of the incident is greatly diminished by a 
somewhat similar case, for the authenticity of 
which the writer can vouch. 

Towards the close of the last century, in Bir- 
mingham, during a very heavy gale of wind, a 
large stack of chimneys fell, carrying with them 
the side of a house. On a narrow slip of flooring, 
in a corner of one of the demolished rooms, stood 
a young girl, a servant in the family, who stated 
that a mysterious and inexplicable impulse had 
led her to fly there the instant before the chimneys 
fell. The girl bore a consistent Christian cha- 
racter, and afterwards made an affidavit to the 
truth of the statement before the high bailiff of 
the town. 

Mr. Wilberforce, in his diary, records with 
deep thankfulness an escape from drowning which 
occurred to himself under the following circum- 
stances. During one of his trips to the country 
he was reading on the banks of a river, having 
drawn his chair close to its margin, and being 
seated with his back to the stream. Suddenly, 
and without any reason that he was conscious of 



JOHANNA JULIUS. 139 

at the time, lie removed his chair to a distance 
from the bank : scarcely had he done so, when 
his seat broke beneath him and he fell to the 
ground. Had the accident occurred when he 
was in his former position, he must have fallen 
on his back into the river and been drowned, as 
he was unable to swim. 

Of a similar character was an incident which 
befell a relative of the writer's, when a little child. 
He was entering a room with his nurse, when the 
latter suddenly put out her hand and drew him 
back : at that instant a large and heavy chest of 
drawers fell, with a loud crash, on to the very 
spot where he stood but the moment before, and 
where he would still have been standing had he 
not been drawn away. The nurse declared that 
she could not assign any reason for what she did, 
or give any account of it whatever. The chest 
of drawers too had stood there for years, nor was 
any danger apprehended from them. 

A striking case of providential presentiment is 
recorded in the seventy-first number of the peri- 
odical accounts of the Moravian missions for 
November 4, 1810. Johanna Julius had laid 
her child down to sleep, and gone to work in the 
garden. When she had been there some time, 
it suddenly came into her mind that the child 
was in danger. The impression became so strong 
that she at length left her work and went to see, 
when to her horror she found a huge and deadly 
puff-adder so coiled round the sleeping child, that 
on its first moving the reptile would have stung 
it to death. The venomous creature was killed 



140 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

by the women who followed her, and the infant 
escaped the danger. 

Equally, if not more striking, however, is the 
following well-authenticated anecdote of the late 
Sir Evan Nepean, which carries the mind back 
to the sleepless night of Ahasuerus, in the palace 
of Shushan. Sir Evan, when under-secretary of 
state, related to a friend of his, that one night 
after retiring to rest he experienced an unaccount- 
able degree of wakefulness. He was in perfect 
health, had dined early and moderately, had 
nothing to brood over, and was perfectly self-pos- 
sessed. Still he could not sleep, and from eleven 
till two in the morning never closed an eye. It 
was summer; twilight was far advanced; and, 
to dissipate the ennui of his wakefulness, he re- 
solved to rise and breathe the morning air in the 
park. There he saw nothing but sleepy sentinels, 
whom he rather envied. He passed the honie- 
office several times, and at last, without any par- 
ticular object, resolved to let himself in with his 
pass-key. The book of entries of the day before 
lay open on the table, and in sheer listlessness 
he began to read. The first thing appalled him, 
"A reprieve to be sent to York for the coiners 
ordered for execution the next day." It struck 
him that he had had no return to his order to 
send the reprieve; and he searched the minutes, 
but could not find it. In alarm he went to the 
house of the chief clerk, who lived in Downing 
street, knocked him up, (it was then long past 
three,) and asked him if he knew any thing of 
the reprieve being sent. In greater alarm, the 



SIR EVAN NEPEAN. 141 

chief clerk could not remember. "You are 
scarcely awake," said Sir Evan: "collect your- 
self : it must have been sent." 

The chief clerk said he did now recollect : he 
had sent it to the clerk of the crown, whose busi- 
ness it was to forward it. 

"Good!" said Sir Evan; "but have you his 
receipt and certificate that it is gone ?" 

"No!" 

" Then come with me to his house : we must 
find him, though it is so early." 

It was now four, and the clerk of the crown 
lived in Chancery lane. There was no hackney 
coach, and they almost ran. The clerk of the 
crown had a country-house, and meaning to have 
a long holiday, he was at that moment stepping 
into his gig to go to his villa. Astonished at the 
visit of the under-secretary at such an hour, he 
was still more so at his business. 

With an exclamation of horror, the clerk of 
the crown cried, " The reprieve is locked up in 
my desk !" It was brought. Sir Evan sent to 
the post-office for the trustiest and fleetest ex- 
press, and the reprieve reached York at the 
moment the unhappy people were ascending the 
cart. 

Impressions of the character now under con- 
sideration seem on some occasions to have been 
the means of preserving individuals from commit- 
ting the crime of suicide. 

William Howitt, in his Year-book of the Coun- 
try, gives a curious narrative taken down from 
the lips of an octogenarian relative, a member of 



142 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

the Society of Friends, as having happened about 
fifty years ago to a member of the same religious 
body named Thomas Waring, a staymaker by 
trade. Led by a strong impression providentially 
made on his mind, he visited the town of Ross, 
and by a singular train of circumstances was the 
means of saving the life of a young woman who 
was on the point of committing self-destruction. 

Startling as such a circumstance appears, yet a 
coincidence exists between it and one of a similar 
character related by Flavel, in his treatise on 
Divine Providence. He states in that work that 
his friend and brother minister, Mr. Dod, was in 
his study late one night, when he found himself 
strangely impelled to visit a gentleman living in 
the neighborhood. The hour was most unseason- 
able, but the impulse was so strong that he at 
length determined to yield to it. At the door 
he met the gentleman, accosted him, and they 
returned into the house together. It proved that 
he was at that moment on his way to destroy 
himself, and that he had the halter in his pocket. 
Other contemporary writers mention this circum- 
stance, but the testimony of Flavel alone is suf- 
ficient to authenticate it. 

The caution which we have given on the sub- 
ject of dreams, is equally applicable to that of 
impressions on the mind of the character now re- 
ferred to. 

The incidents given above must, therefore, be 
received as providential and comparatively rare 
exceptions to a general rule. To act upon every 
floating impression would be fanatical and un- 



JOHN CRAIG. 143 

scriptural, and a sober and enlightened judgment 
must be our guide in all ordinary cases. 

An interesting department of our subject opens 
upon us, when we consider the numerous instances 
in which the animal creation has been made the 
means of conveying deliverance in times of 
danger. 

John Craig, the distinguished and active col- 
league of Knox in the work of the Reformation 
in Scotland, on one occasion owed his safety to 
the instrumentality of a dog. Having escaped 
from the grasp of the Inquisition in Italy, he 
found his little stock of money exhausted, and 
himself penniless in a strange land. To beg 
would almost certainly have occasioned his detec- 
tion, and insured his being again taken prisoner. 
Concealed in the outskirts of a forest, and pon- 
dering over his forlorn condition, he was startled 
by seeing a large dog approach. Fearful lest it 
should attack him, or lead to his detection, he 
tried to drive it away, but in vain. He then saw 
that it held something in its mouth. He took it, 
and found it to be a purse of money, which the 
dog had apparently picked up. His wants were 
thus supplied for the present, and so carefully did 
he husband the resources so unexpectedly put 
into his hand, that he was enabled by their means 
to reach his native country in safety. 

Among the escapes from imminent peril after 
the atrocious massacre of St. Bartholomew, per- 
haps none was more remarkable than that of 
Merlin, chaplain to Coligny. When all hope of 
resistance or escape for himself was over, the ad- 



144 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

miral urged his friends to save themselves by 
flight, if they could, while he remained, and 
calmly met the death which appeared inevitable. 
Many of them acted upon their leader's urgent 
entreaty, and getting out by a trap-door, en- 
deavored to make their escape along the roofs of 
the adjoining houses. All of them, however, 
were shot down by the bloodthirsty assassins in 
the streets, except Merlin. The roof of one of 
the houses gave way beneath him, and he fell 
through into a garret, which was used as a lumber- 
room and hayloft. But here he only seemed to 
have escaped death in one form, to meet it in 
another. If he left his place of concealment, he 
would fall into the hands of murderers : if he re- 
mained, he must be starved to death. But He 
who had led him into this unexpected place of 
refuge, was the same God who had fed the fugi- 
tive prophet by means of the ravens. Scarcely 
had Merlin begun to feel the pangs of hunger, 
before a hen entered through a hole in the roof, 
laid an egg, and departed : this continued day by 
day until the danger had gone by, and the pas- 
tor dared to show himself. He was of course 
much emaciated by the smallness of his sup- 
ply of food; but without it he must have per- 
ished.* 

In later periods we meet with equally remark- 
able instances of escape through the intervention 



* It is stated that Merlin escaped by a spider having 
woven its web over the place of his concealment. This, 
however, seems to rest on insufficient evidence. 



JOHN CRAIG. 145 

of the animal creation. During the American 
War of Independence, one of the contending 
armies arrived at a Quaker settlement, and de- 
manded food. This was supplied as far as the 
ability of the settlers went ; for, though consci- 
entiously abstaining from all interference in the 
war, they felt that it could not be a violation of 
their principles to feed a company of starving men. 
The next day the opposing army came up in pur- 
suit, and partly because they were in want of 
provision, partly out of revenge for the assistance 
afforded their adversaries, they stripped the set- 
tlers of every kind of edible that yet remained. 
So great was the destitution to which they weiv 
thus reduced, that absolute famine was before 
them. The forests around were in possession of 
the soldiers, who either killed or drove away the 
game which might otherwise have supplied them 
with food. There was no resource left them but faith 
and prayer. They therefore earnestly committed 
themselves to the care, and besought the kind in- 
tervention of their heavenly Father. For some 
time he tried their faith, and seemed, by delaying 
his answer, not to hear their prayers. After 
several days of distress and solicitude, they re- 
tired to rest one night without any prospect of 
speedy deliverance. The next morning they 
arose, and found immense herds of wild deer 
surrounding their enclosures, as though driven in 
for their especial benefit. How they came there 
none could tell. It was conjectured, that either 
the severity of the season had compelled them to 
seek the cultivated districts, and that hunger had 
13 



146 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

made them fearless of the presence of man ; or 
else that, terrified by the incessant skirmishing 
of the troops who were manoeuvring in the neigh- 
borhood, they had sought out this quiet valley as 
a retreat from the cannonade. But whatever was 
the cause which drove them there, they supplied 
the starving settlers with food sufficient for their 
need ; and the parties delivered recognized, with 
adoring gratitude, the hand of Him who has said, 
"All the beasts of the forest are mine." 

Jeremy Taylor has somewhere said, that " a fly 
with God's message could choke a king;" and a 
little insignificant beetle is known to have saved 
the life of a distinguished French naturalist.* 
During the ferment of the great French Revolu- 
tion, Latreille — for that was the naturalist's name 
— had been thrown into prison, and afterwards 
conveyed to one of the great general depots at the 
city of Bordeaux. The physician of the prison 
was one day struck by the attentive manner in 
which one of the captives was contemplating some 
object on the wall, and asked what it was that so 
engaged his notice. Latreille, for it was he, re- 
plied, " It is a very rare insect." The physician 
had a young friend in Bordeaux who was fond of 
the study of insects, and who was forming at the 
time a collection. Knowing that this individual 
would highly prize a rare specimen, he asked for 
the insect, and obtained it. The physician's 
friend desired to see the imprisoned entomologist, 

* This incident is extracted from an interesting 
volume, entitled "Gleanings of Sacred Philosophy." 



LATREILLE. 147 

and became interested in his favor. He was de- 
lighted to meet with one who had written on his 
favorite subject, and, assisted by others, he pre- 
vailed on the authorities of his native city to re- 
lease Latreille. 

He was accordingly liberated. Shortly after, 
his fellow-captives were shipped as convicts for 
Cayenne, but the ship which contained them 
foundered in the Bay of Biscay, and every one 
on board perished. How obscure the means God 
frequently employs, and, to us short-sighted mor- 
tals, how often apparently insignificant are the 
instruments he uses, to work his wondrously in- 
comprehensible will ! This beetle did as truly, 
under God, save the life of Latreille, as did the 
ark of Noah the remnant of the world, or as 
does the raft or mast the shipwrecked mariner. 
Latreille never forgot his little insect deliverer. 
When he was an old man, and had his pupils 
around him, no mark of his favor was so appre- 
ciated by them as a specimen of this blue, red- 
shouldered beetle, bestowed on them as a gift 
from him. After Latreille's release, his favorite 
study of entomology was most assiduously pur- 
sued, and that well-directed industry which God 
so frequently rewards, did in time give him a 
name and a distinguished place among scientific 
men. In 1806 and 1807, he published an ad- 
mirable work on the characters of insects, which 
speedily raised him to the foremost ranks of 
natural historians ; and it is in this work, en- 
titled, " Genera Crustaceorum et Insectorum," 
that his little deliverer is first mentioned. Under 



148 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

the genus Necrobia, he gives as an illustration 
the species called Necrobia ruficollis, and at 
the end of its descriptive marks adds, "An in- 
sect very dear to rne; for in those disastrous 
times when France groaned tremulously under 
the weight of endless calamities, by the kind 
intervention of Bory de St. Vincent and D'Ar- 
gelas, but principally the latter, this little ani- 
mal was the miraculous cause of my liberty and 
safety/' 

We have already referred to the marvellous 
escape which Mr. Gobat experienced in the den 
of a hyaena; but on another occasion in his 
eventful career, this animal was made the pro- 
vidential instrument of his deliverance from a 
violent death. While laboring among the wild 
tribes of the Druses, a messenger from one of 
their chiefs, whose influence it was important to 
secure, sent a message entreating Mr. Gobat to 
visit him. The latter, however, was unable to 
do so, in consequence of his laboring at the time 
under indisposition. A second messenger repeat- 
ed the invitation, but still, contrary to Mr. Go- 
bat's expectation, circumstances arose to prevent 
him complying with the chiefs wishes. A third 
messenger, however, at last prevailed on him to 
set out, by the assurance that if he went at once 
he might spend the night with the chief, and 
be ready to return in the morning, so as to join 
a ship about to sail for Malta, and in which Mr. 
Gobat was anxious to embark. On their journey, 
the guides lost themselves in the dark and lonely 
mountain paths which led to the chief's dwell- 



MR. GOBAT. 149 

ing. Having at last, with some difficulty, re- 
gained their route, they suddenly saw by the light 
of the moon — for night had come on — that a 
hycena had laid itself doivn across the path 
exactly in their way. The natives took up some 
stones and threw them at it, in order to frighten 
it. The animal sprang up and ran straight along 
the path over which the party was to travel. 
This apparently accidental circumstance decided 
them. A superstition is prevalent among the 
Druses, that " the way a hyaena goes is an un- 
lucky one." The natives refused, accordingly, 
to go farther, and Mr. Gobat was obliged to 
retrace his steps in order to embark for Malta, 
greatly perplexed in his own mind at the obsta- 
cles which had hindered him from accomplishing 
a journey apparently of so much consequence 
to his mission. In time, however, it was evident 
that a gracious Hand had planned these interrup- 
tions, and that the hyaena had been a providen- 
tial messenger. When in Malta, Mr. Gobat 
received a letter from a friend in Lebanon, stating 
that he had been tisited by the chief, who, with 
much agitation, had spoken to him as follows : — 
" Your friend is truly a servant of God, and God 
has preserved him ; for I wished to draw him to 
my village in order to murder him. Therefore I 
sent message after message to him ; but God has 
delivered him from the hand of his enemies." In 
perusing such a narrative, who can avoid exclaim- 
ing, " This is the finger of God !" 

Such of our readers as have perused the in- 
teresting narrative of the escape of the Madagascar 
13* 



150 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

converts from their persecutors, may remember 
how that little band of faithful confessors owed 
their deliverance on one important occasion to the 
instrumentality of the animal creation. A band 
of soldiers was advancing to surround the house 
in which they were sheltered, at a time when they 
were quite unconscious of any such danger im- 
pending. The chattering of some crows, how- 
ever, attracted the attention of one of the party, 
and, goiug to the door to see what occasioned the 
noise, he perceived the soldiers advancing, and had 
time to give an alarfa sufficient to enable all to 
escape. 

A singular incident is related in connection 
with Mr. Colston, the merchant-prince of Bristol, 
whose name still " smells sweet and blossoms 
from the dust," in consequence of the munificent 
character of his charities. One of his vessels, 
on her return voyage, struck upon a rock, and 
so large was the leak, that all efforts to save her 
from foundering seemed ineffectual. Suddenly 
the water ceased to pour in, and by dint of con- 
stant pumping the ship waff brought safe to 
port. When the cargo had been discharged, 
she was overhauled for repairs, when, to the 
astonishment of all, a dolphin was found firmly 
wedged in the leak. As a memorial of this sin- 
gular event, the figure of a dolphin was carved 
on the staves which are, or were wont to be, 
carried in annual procession through the streets 
of Bristol, in commemoration of Mr. Colston's 
generous philanthropy. 

Dr. Calamy, in his " Life and Times/' records 



REV. H. CAPERN. 151 

the preservation in a similar manner of a ship 
and crew, commanded by Captain Stephens, 
"who resided at Harwich, and was a man of 
good reputation." Dr. Calainy, in attestation of 
the truth of the statement, asserts that the fish 
was preserved in spirits, and might be seen at the 
time he wrote. 

Closely resembling, also, both of the above in- 
cidents, is the following curious instance of pre- 
servation from danger. The Bermudas consist 
of a multiplicity of islands of various sizes, many 
of them so small as only to contain and provide 
food for two or three families. It was usual for 
the missionaries who labored in that quarter of 
the world to cruise at stated intervals from one to 
another of these inlets, visiting the few indivi- 
duals upon them in succession. A few years 
ago, the Rev. H. Capern was, in this manner, 
making a tour among the islanders under his 
pastoral care, when the small vessel in whii-h he 
usually sailed sprang a leak, and the water poured 
in so rapidly, that all their attempts to keep it 
down by pumping and bailing were fruitless. 
The nearest land was some miles distant, and it 
seemed impossible to keep the sloop afloat till 
they could reach it. Unexpectedly, however, 
they found that the leak had abated, and that 
they were rapidly lessening the quantity of water 
in the hold. The hope of escape inspired them 
with new energy, and by dint of great exertions 
they were able to reach the shore. Having 
drawn the boat up on to the beach, they proceed- 
ed to examine her keel, that they might discover 



152 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

what had stopped the leak. To their surprise 
they found a mass of tangled seaweed, so large as 
to fill up the hole, and so matted together as effect- 
ually to keep out the water. 

This deliverance may be considered a parallel 
to one which occurred to Captain Cook in his in- 
teresting -voyages of discovery. While navigating 
an unknown ocean, the ship suddenly grounded 
upon a reef of rocks, and began fast to fill. 
Alarm filled even the minds of the bravest, and 
so near did the whole of the party appear to the 
eternal world, that the most careless and profane 
were awed by the appalling character of the 
danger. For some time the water gained upon 
them, but at last the vessel floated off the reef, 
and the crew having made some hasty attempts 
to repair the damage, the ship proceeded on her 
voyage. On gainiug a safe port, an examination 
of the ship's bottom was made, when, to the aston- 
ishment of all, it was found that the leak had 
been stopped up in a great measure by a fragment 
of rock, which had broken off the reef, and served 
to keep the water from rushing in. With this 
slight obstruction between them and death they 
had been sailing for some days. The sensation 
of the rescued crew on making this discovery 
may be imagined. The hand of God will be seen 
in this deliverance more clearly when we remem- 
ber that by means of Captain Cook were discov- 
ered the South Sea Islands, where afterwards 
missionary enterprise raised so many trophies of 
the Redeemer's grace. 

In a former chapter we have seen how surely 



CAPTAIN COOK. 153 

the prayer of faith has been answered, and how 
deliverance has been extended to those who have 
cried to God in the hour of extremity. The 
instances now given will, we trust, have con- 
firmed the same truth, and at the same time will 
have shown how manifold are the resources which 
Omnipotence can employ to work out its provi- 
dential purposes. 



15-1 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONCLUSION. 

The following results may be deduced from 
the foregoing narratives : — 

1st. There is no condition of life exempt from 
danger. Perils encompass us wherever we go. 
Death lurks in ambush along the whole path of 
life, and may spring upon us at any moment. A 
very large proportion of the imminent perils re- 
corded in the previous pages were encountered 
by persons engaged in peaceful occupations. They 
imagined themselves secure from present or im- 
mediate danger, when suddenly they found them- 
selves face to face with the king of terrors. 
Sudden death may smite us down when in fancied 
safety, as well as when in acknowledged jeopardy. 
No age, no position, is exempt, and no precaution 
can ward off the stroke. The thunderbolt smites 
at one blow and involves in one ruin the gnarled 
giant oak, and the floweret which nestled in ob- 
scurity at its foot. The " rich man" felt himself 
secure when he laid his plans of affluent ease 
"for many years;" but the awful mandate went 
forth, " Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be re- 
quired of thee." 

2d. There is a special Providence watching 



CONCLUSION. 155 

over us. The facts adduced suggest, and furnish 
material for, two lines of argument in proof of 
this assertion. 

First, the multiplicity and variety of the de- 
liverances recorded. If there had been only one 
or two instances of signal and remarkable escapes 
from imminent peril on record, it might have 
been thought easy to have explained them away 
as being merely casual and fortuitous conjunctions 
of circumstances. But if any person should, 
therefore, go on to apply the same explanation to 
each case in the series, and to ignore them all as 
mere accidents, he would be guilty of a most 
egregious fallacy. Each additional case adds 
something to the improbability of such an expla- 
nation, till at length the probabilities against it 
become all but infinite. 

Secondly, many of the deliverances indicate an 
obvious purpose. They are evidently connected 
with antecedent acts of faith and prayer, or they 
result in the dedication of the life which was 
preserved to Him who was believed to have pre- 
served it. They thus form parts of the great 
scheme of moral government, attesting the con- 
tinued agency of the Most High, and supplying 
motives to, or rewards of his service. Just as we 
infer the existence of a Creator from the marks of 
design in creation, may we infer the fact of an 
overruling Providence from similar marks of de- 
sign in the course of human events. 

3. The mode in which providential interposi- 
tions are effected is illustrated. Not by miracu- 
lous subvention not by a subversion of the laws 



156 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

of nature, not by a dissolution of the connection 
between cause and effect ; but by the control and 
superintendence of natural agencies and general 
laws, adapting thein to special emergencies and 
individual cases are they effected. The opponents 
of the doctrine of Providence have generally mis- 
conceived or misrepresented this fact. Thus Pope 
writes : — 

"Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause 
Prone for his favorites to reverse his laws ? 
Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, 
Forget to thunder, or recall his fires ? 
When the loose mountain trembles from on high, 
Shall gravitation cease if you go by?" 

We do not think the Eternal to be " altogether 
such a one as ourselves," and do not expect him 
to reverse his laws for our sakes. If the saint or 
the sage recklessly violates the laws of nature, or 
rather, the laws of Grod in nature, the insulted 
laws will avenge themselves in his destruction. 
Even the Eternal Son would not tempt the Lord 
by casting himself down from the pinnacle of the 
temple. Nevertheless, the ancient promise stands 
good — " He shall give his angels charge over 
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways/' That is to 
say, we may expect protection in the path of 
duty. If, in obedience to the will of God, we 
have to encounter imminent perils, we may hope 
for signal and providential deliverances; "and 
that not through the powers of nature disobeying 
their own laws, but through other powers in 
nature opportunely interposing to stop, to turn 
aside, or otherwise to modify their operation. 



CONCLUSION. 157 

The volcano may burst, the tempest may rage, 
and the cliff may fall, an instant before or an in- 
stant after the time when these events might have 
been followed by fatal consequences; or some 
passing impulse of feeling may have hurried the 
individual away; or some other power of nature 
may have hastened to shelter or defend him — 
and all by a special arrangement intended by God 
from the very beginning." It is, then, either ig- 
norance or perverse misrepresentation on the part 
of the deniers of Providence to charge those who 
believe it with expecting continued miracles. 
The distinction between the two is broad and 
clear. The age of miracles is past — the age of 
Providence continues. " This is, in fact," says 
Isaac Taylor, " the great miracle of Providence — ■ 
that no miracles are needed to accomplish its 
purposes." 

4. We learn how minute and universal are 
ilie care and providence of God. Our illustra- 
tions have been drawn, not exclusively from 
among the great and noble, but also from the 
humble and obscure. " The poor and needy, and 
he that hath no helper" save God, have expe- 
rienced that as nothing is too vast for his power, 
so nothing is too insignificant for his notice. 
" The Lord is good to aM } and his tender mercies 
are over all his works." To his omniscience the 
individual is not lost sight of in the multitude, or 
the unit forgotten in the aggregate ; but he cares 
for all, by caring for each. So that the cases of 
special and particular providence adduced, fur- 
nish not exceptions to, but examples of, the ge- 
14 



158 REMARKABLE ESCAPES FROM PERIL. 

neral rule. We have thus an emphatic confirma* 
tion and exposition of our Lord's words, that 
" not one sparrow shall fall on the ground with- 
out our Father/' and that " the very hairs of our 
head are all numbered. " 

In the course of this volume we have had to 
consider perils of a widely varied character ; but 
we may be permitted to remind the reader, that 
there is one yet more imminent than any we have 
enumerated — one to which all are by nature ex- 
posed — the loss of the immortal soul. No ca- 
lamity could be so awful as this, for it is final, 
fatal, and irretrievable. Taught, then, by the 
lessons of life's uncertainty which have been 
passing under review, may we hasten while it is 
yet time to the refuge set before us in the gospel : 
repent of sin ; believe in the Saviour j and, re- 
newed by his Holy Spirit, approve ourselves his 
faithful followers by a life of devout obedience. 
" God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." Be 
it ours to welcome these tidings with cordial faith, 
as worthy of all acceptation ; and constrained by 
a sense of the mercies of God, no longer to live 
to ourselves, but to the glory of Him who hath 
" delivered us from so great a death." 



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